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Treasure Trail
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"Treasure Trail" performed by Frank Barker and His Latin Aires, 1950's. Music composed by Bernie Williams and commissioned by the 89'ers International Highway Association, Inc. Read the agreement here: <a href="http://highway89.org/items/show/1288%20">http://highway89.org/items/show/1288 </a>
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Frank Barker and His Latin Aires
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Barker, Frank, performer
Williams, Bernie, compser
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United States Highway 89
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1955
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1950-1959
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eng;
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives, Edgar Bentley Mitchell Papers, 1950-1959, COLL MSS 322 Box 2 Folder 4
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COLL MSS 322 Edgar Bentley Mitchell Papers, 1950-1959
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View the finding aid for this collection at: <a href="http://uda-db.orbiscascade.org/findaid/ark:/80444/xv06356">http://uda-db.orbiscascade.org/findaid/ark:/80444/xv06356</a>
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Treasure Trail.mp3
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http://highway89.org/files/original/cd49883a39193e69d7a86a876837bf0f.pdf
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Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Bill Petersen
Place of Interview: Mr. Peterson’s home
Date of Interview: 14 April 2008
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Rebecca Smith
Rebecca Smith
Recording Equipment:
Marantz PMD660 Digital Recorder
Transcription Equipment used:
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Chelsea Amdal
Randy Williams (2/23/09; July 2011), Bill Peterson (3/09)
Brief Description of Contents: Mr. Peterson talks about growing up in Hyrum, Utah; his
father’s ranching and farming operations; working with his families’ sheep ranching operation in
Cache National Forest and in Box Elder County. He talks about getting out of the sheep business
due to a mysterious event that killed over 300 sheep in the mid 1950s that also caused many of
the sheep to become sterile. After this, the family got out of the sheep ranching business. He
also talks his education at Utah State University and University of Utah and going into the real
estate business in Bear Lake. He also talks about local land conservation issues.
Reference:
BP = Bill Petersen
RS = Rebecca Smith (Interviewer; USU graduate student)
MP=Mary Peterson
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcript. All additions to transcript are noted with brackets.
At the end of the transcript is information on “Willard Petersen and Sheep Creek Cove” supplied
by Bill Petersen.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
RS:
OK Bill, I would like to start by asking what your full name is.
BP:
My name is Willard Reed Petersen.
RS:
When and where were you born?
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�BP:
I was born in Logan, 11/22/1926
RS:
How long have you lived here? Have you lived here this whole time?
BP:
I lived in Hyrum ‘til about 20 years ago.
RS:
Ok, so you were born in Logan.
BP:
I lived in Hyrum ‘til I was . . . no it was longer than that I guess. I lived in Hyrum for say
forty years and balanced a life here, in Bear Lake. 30 years here.
RS:
What was your earliest memory of Logan Canyon?
BP:
My earliest memory of Logan Canyon was driving up in the canyon with my father when
I was probably eight to ten years old, delivering supplies to the sheep, which were raised
in Logan Canyon. We had four permits on the Cache National Forrest. One in Dip
Hollow, one in Boulder Mountain and one in Mount Logan, and one Pete’s Hollow.
RS:
In Pete’s Hollow? Ok. What was your father’s name?
BP:
Willard Petersen. They called me Bill and him Willard.
RS:
And so you grew up, you say, in Hyrum? And you spent some of that time going up into
the canyon with your father?
BP:
Oh a lot. Yeah we would go up Logan Canyon; a lot in Blacksmith Fork too. We had a
private range up Blacksmith Fork Canyon and then we’d drive, we’d range the sheep
from Blacksmith Fork Canyon over, drive them over into Logan Canyon for high summer
mountain grazing.
RS:
I’m not really familiar with a lot of the canyons, so I’m trying to figure out where your
father’s land might have been. You don’t happen to have a map of that area do you?
BP:
Oh yeah I’ve got them.
RS:
Ok let me pause this and maybe we could look at a map. Do you have them really
accessible? Or we could do it afterwards.
BP:
Let’s do it afterwards.
RS:
Ok
BP:
But anyway, the private range that we would go up to in the spring and early summer was
south of the Hardware Ranch. And we would be there in the springtime and out in the
desert or out on the Spring Range in Box Elder County. And we would truck the sheep,
or trail them. Earlier we would trail them and later we would truck them, from Box Elder
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�County into Cache County and up onto the forest range. And the sheep from Rattlesnake
Mountain, Box Elder County would either go to private range or directly to the forest
depending on the time of the year or what’s going on.
And our private range was 7 miles south of the Hardware Ranch. This is where it started
and we extended through another 7 to 10 miles along the Aunt Valley road. And then in
the first of July when the forest permits became active and we could go to the forest, we
would trail the sheep from our private range there over to the Hardware Ranch, stopped at
the Hardware, Curtis Creek, Rock Creek and then Left Hand Fork; and, then into our
different permits.
RS:
What was that like growing up helping your father?
BP:
What was it like what?
RS:
What was it like to help your father with the sheep when you were growing up?
BP:
It was just like a summer or year round vacation being with the sheep. I loved being in
the mountains or in the desert.
RS:
Were there different aspects that you liked more than others?
BP:
Oh, I liked actually being out herding the sheep in the summer time, but we didn’t get
much opportunity because there was farm work to do. We had a farm that helped support
feed the sheep. And we would raise hay and alfalfa and grains for the sheep and the
horses and later on cattle that we had.
RS:
Was that in Hyrum?
BP:
That was in Hyrum, our base in the summer. Our base in the fall and early spring before
we got up here was in Hansel Valley out in Box Elder County. We had land with sheds
and a cabin, we had kind of a head quarters there.
Then in the winter time we went clear out to Nevada to Ely: between Ely and Wendover.
Trailed our sheep out to there, we had a permit out there and then we had one in Utah,
close to Snowville, towards the Utah Nevada Idaho border, out in that area.
RS:
What were your families’ land use traditions? Were there any annual or periodic events
that you did?
BP:
I still don’t get the question… [Trail the sheep from summer to winter range; trail back in
the spring.]
RS:
Are there things that you or your family did, or continue to do today on an annual basis,
or like special events.
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�BP:
Yeah, we go up to the forest. Forest permits would open up on the first of July. So that
was an event that we would keep in mind and would plan our activities so that we go to
the forest on the first of July. We came off; our permits would expire about the 15th of
September, if I remember right. And we would have to be off the forest, well, the 15th or
the 30th, I can’t remember exactly, but we’d be off of the forest at that time. And go back
over to our private land for, oh ‘til October, just for deer season. We’d try to be out of
Blacksmith Fork Canyon down in the Cache Valley, away from the deer hunting.
Because the deer hunt was quite dangerous up there for the sheep, the hunters would
shoot them. So we’d try to get out of the canyon before the deer season started.
RS:
Ok, so let me just make sure I understand. Your family had a farm in Hyrum. And you
had land in the canyon, where you would allow your sheep to graze. And then during the
time of the year when you could get permits for the forest, then you would trail your
sheep to different forests and let them graze there.
BP:
[This paragraph was revised by Mr. Peterson] After the summer season we trail the sheep
out of the canyon. We would rent fields (farm ground) down through Wellsville,
Mendon, over to Fielding, Garland, Blue Creek and finally end up on our private range
on Rattlesnake Mountain. After staying on our private ground a short time we would
continue on the BLM trail to our private range on Pilot Mountain. We would stay there
for a short time, and then continue to our winter range. This would take about 45 days.
RS:
Were there other members of your family that took part in this trailing the sheep?
BP:
My father; and I have two brothers and they would occasionally help.
RS:
And what are their names?
BP:
Howard Clark Petersen, he lives in Nibley Utah. He has a dairy farm there. And then
there’s Stanford B. Petersen and he lives in Salt Lake.
RS:
Were they older or younger?
BP:
Younger.
RS:
Can you tell me what your hobbies or recreational pursuits are?
BP:
Oh I love to fish. I used to golf. I always hunted: many outdoor type activities.
I like to watch the Jazz now.
RS:
(hehehehe) How are they doing?
BP:
Good. Just got back; just went down and watched the game night before last, down in
Salt Lake. Just got back yesterday, spent the night down there, it was fun; a good chance
to get away.
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�RS:
Sounds exciting. Can you tell me about your profession? I know you’re retired now, but
what your profession…
BP:
After we had our problem with the sheep and I got out of the sheep business, I did have
an education. I graduated from Utah State University. And I, along with range classes and
stuff I took, political science, and I had a good background in law. [I] went to law school
for two years down at University of Utah. And that gave me a background to where I
could go into the real estate business pretty easy, and I went into the real estate business
and became a real estate partner at a firm here in Logan. And eventually a real estate
broker.
RS:
How did you decide to go to school at Utah State University?
BP:
Well, my mother always believed in education. And living in Hyrum, that’s the place to
go.
RS:
How did you get interested, when you enrolled, how did you get interested in range
classes?
BP:
Well, that being, having my father having farms and ranches. I decided that’s the place to
spend part of my time anyways. So I did. I didn’t major in animal husbandry or range
management, but I took enough I could have minored in range management. Had a
number of classes from Dr. Wayne Cook; [he] was very good. And he had a graduate
assistant and they did range work out on our—some of our BLM ground permits in Box
Elder County. And I got to know them quite well. And I enjoyed their company and
enjoyed taking their classes.
RS:
And you were also studying Political Science at that time?
BP:
I majored in political science and minored in economics and business and stuff. I had all
kinds of minors.
RS:
All kinds of interests. So then how did you get interested in real estate?
BP:
[This paragraph was revised by Mr. Peterson] With the problems we were having at the
sheep ranch, I could see the writing on the wall, that our sheep ranch would not be viable
very long. I could see that it was not going to be economically possible to keep it going.
I started looking around for other employment options. We started selling parcels of land
to cover expenses. One of the gentlemen who handled the sale of our property was real
estate broker Mel Squires. The land he sold for us extended from North of Richmond on
the foothills extending to the Idaho border and up to the forest. I admired the way he did
that. Selling caught my interest and I thought “I think maybe I could do something like
that.” I had a friend who was a real estate broker and I asked him if I could join his firm,
he said yes and that is how I got started in real estate. Some years later I became a
partner in the firm. We later dissolved our partnership. I became a broker and took over
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�an office we had in Bear Lake. It worked out good for both of us. It was an enjoyable
profession.
RS:
Ok, so when you were talking about your profession and you went into real estate, you
said that’s because there was a problem with the sheep, so could you talk about that?
BP:
Well in about, let’s see 1947 or ‘48, I’m not sure about the exact date. But I was in law
school at the time and we were trailing the sheep out to the desert as usual. We were out
just north of Rabbit Springs which is right close to the Nevada boarder. And the sheep
were coming through a pass and my father was going to meet us out there. I had been out
to the head quarters at Hansel Valley, spent the night there, and one of the ranch hands
and I were gonna meet dad. He went from Salt Lake around the south end of the Great
Salt Lake up back. And we went around the north side of the lake. From our Hansel
Valley, anyway we were going to meet out at this Rabbit Springs and count the sheep.
And we got there before day light and we met and had breakfast. The sun started coming
out. We looked out and we saw a bunch of dead sheep. And we had never seen anything
like it before. We couldn’t tell what it was. But we looked at them, tried to figure it out.
There was nothing we could do, they were dead. It was at least 300 of them dead. Their
heads had kind of swollen up and lost some hair around their head. And they looked
terrible. And we could not figure out what it was.
We took 3 or 4 carcasses into Utah State University, who had a poison control center and
the best one in the western United States. And I asked them to tell us what has happened.
And they sent back a report saying it was inconclusive. They couldn’t tell us. After
looking and watching and thinking about the situation 20 years too late, we kind of
figured out that it was radiation from one of the atomic bombs that they were testing in
the Nevada test site. And it killed about close to 300 give or take some. The rest of the
sheep were sterile but we didn’t know it. And they went on their way, went out and we
wintered them out there of course. Some died during the winter and we had a higher than
normal, quite a bit higher than normal death rate that year. But then the spring came; we
had a new lambing shed, best of facilities, and we couldn’t get 50% lamb crop. And
usually you get a hundred and twenty percent in a shed environment. Well, without a
lamb crop and with expenses still coming in, there is no way you can still continue the
sheep business.
[This paragraph was revised by Mr. Peterson] Finally we had to sell our sheep and get
out of the business. We had no idea what was causing the problem. We had never heard
of radiation at the time and the government never told us about a problem. The fellow we
sold the sheep to went broke, no lambs. He never figured out the problem either. After
all was said and done and much reading the only conclusion I could come up with was
the problem was caused by radiation. The sheep herders who were with the sheep both
died of cancer. My father and I both had cancer. We are pretty sure that it was a radiation
caused incident but there is [no] proof after this much time.
RS:
And you were in law school at that time? So how old do you think you were?
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�BP:
About 23.
MP:
I think Bill was more like in ‘54, because we got married in ‘48 and we lived up on the
hill and Pat was born in 50. I think it was more like in 1954 than in‘48.
BP:
Well I graduated…
MP:
You graduated from Utah State in 1950.
Yeah, you’re right because ‘55 out of, in 1955 I would have graduated from law school,
but before I would have graduated from law school. So it would have to be 1953-4.
RS:
Ok. And so how did that impact your family then, your father?
BP:
Nothing you can do.
RS:
Did he keep using the land for his livelihood?
BP:
Well, we had quite a debt load so we had to unload most of our properties. You have to
pay your bills, and the only way you can do it is to sell the land. One time he was the 2nd
largest tax payer in Box Elder County. Petersen Land & Livestock Inc. was the 2nd largest
and we were one of the larger ones in Cache County. We had about 12,000 acres of
private property in Cache County. And we had about 50,000 acres out in Box Elder
County.
RS:
So going back to talking about your profession, what were some of the major influences
that helped you choose your profession?
BP:
Which one? Ranching or real estate?
RS:
Let’s start with ranching.
BP:
Well, I love to be out in the mountains, and I love to… I didn’t like the farming part of it
as much as the ranching part and we had both. Plus then my brothers took over the farms,
and I took over the sheep. And one of my brothers still has the dairy farm, in Nibley that
was part of the operation. And my other brother, he didn’t like to dry farm, we had dry
farms and he didn’t like that as well, so he sold those and he went into real estate: in
apartments and motels in Salt Lake City. And he’s still doing that, he’s still a real estate
broker. In fact when I retired I transferred my license over to his company and I’m a
licensed real-estate agent now with his company. And we just had to go our merry ways
without the ranching part of the operation.
RS:
You said your brother was working, did you say dry farms or dairy farms?
BP:
Both. One was a dairy farmer, one went into dairy farming. We had farms in out of
Hyrum, well Hyrum was the main area. We had farms in Mount Sterling and down in
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�Hyrum’s north field, which is quite close to Nibley. Actually in Nibley right were the
dairy is now, where his dairy is now. And he still has that; still runs the dairy. He runs
three hundred milk cows out there now.
RS:
And what’s a dry farm?
BP:
The Nibley Farm was irrigated. You have irrigation water out of the Blacksmith Fork
River that irrigated the Nibley area. The dry farms were out in the Mount Sterling area.
And they were like the name implies: dry. They didn’t have any irrigation rights. So they
call those dry farms. And we had dry farms out in Box Elder County; had a number of
them out there. And that’s where my 2nd brother was but he didn’t like the dry farms too
well so we sold those off.
RS:
In terms of the ranching, are there people who were mentors to you in this or who
influenced you in terms of your hobbies/interests?
BP:
My father of course, yeah.
RS:
And how did he do that?
BP:
Well, he took me with him. He took me with him when he’d go up to the canyon to the
different sheep herds to deliver supplies, when he’d go up to count the sheep, when he
would do any of the work up there, I would always ride in the truck with him. And I got
to enjoy the mountains and that’s how I got started.
RS:
So how long was your family running sheep?
BP:
My dad started with his father when he was, he was actually out in the mountains, up on
Mount Logan, herding sheep when he was 12 years old, ALONE.
RS:
Your father was.
BP:
And he’s been with the sheep on and off ever since. And he died at 97. But he, after we
lost all those sheep we got out of the sheep business, it kind of, he was getting old then
anyway. He was 65 or something.
MP:
No he was 60 when we got married. He was in his 80’s.
BP:
Ok, he was probably 75-80 when we…
RS:
when he stopped with the sheep.
BP:
Yeah.
RS:
And what was his father’s name?
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�BP:
Lorenzo.
RS:
Lorenzo Petersen. Ok for the next question, are you a member of a religious community?
If so how does your religious affiliation affect your land use beliefs?
BP:
I’m not a member of a religious community. [I told you we are “Mormons” but we really
are Christians.]
RS:
Ok. Do you think that your religious or spiritual, if you don’t have religious beliefs, do
you think that there’s been some influence whether it’s spiritual or not?
BP:
Some influence on what?
RS:
Some influence on your beliefs about land use?
BP:
No. I believe land use is governed by laws of nature. I believe land use is a science to be
studied and learned.
RS:
Ok, in what areas of Logan Canyon, I know you talked about some of the areas, but
maybe you could talk about other areas where you were also active.
BP:
Well, along with the ranching, I’ve always liked to fish. And I’ve always fished Logan
Canyon and Blacksmith Fork Canyon, both. I’ve fished on the Curtis Creek, Rock Creek
and Left Hand Fork. They were all really good little streams when I started out fishing,
along with Logan Canyon. At the present time, I still like to fish Logan Canyon. I used to
fish the river all the time, but not now I’ve switched to were I can sit down and fish from
a chair in the dam.
RS:
What kind of fish do you get out of there? What kind of fish do you catch?
BP:
Oh we catch trout, either German brown or rainbows. Used to catch a lot of red cutthroats
but they’re kind of a thing of the past.
RS:
I know you said that you like picnic there as well. Were there other places in the canyon
where you would go for that sort of activity?
BP:
Yeah, we still picnic up there. We take our family and go up at least once, twice, three
times a year. Take our great grandkids and go up and have a picnic and fish and every
one of the kids has caught a fish in Logan River, grandkids have caught, great grandkids
have caught a fish in Logan Canyon. And we usually go up to the 2nd Dam and the picnic
areas where it’s real nice and we can fish and picnic and keep the kids occupied there.
[In our younger days we used to go up to Tony’s Grove when we were younger.]
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�Left Hand Fork is really good up Blacksmith Fork too. We used to go up there, some real
nice little place up there, it was quite secluded and a little stream going by there; and real
nice fishing up there.
RS:
How have those places changed over the years? The places that you and your
family—when you were a kid—visited. Are those the same places you visit now or has
that changed?
BP:
The facilities are much better now. Earlier there wasn’t areas for camping and picnic
tables, there wasn’t fire pits that they have now. They are a lot better. The major change I
can see though when I started with dad in the sheep business, they had started permits.
And before it was just open. And they could run sheep wherever they wanted, when my
father started. And that meant that with a lot of sheep on the easy access areas and it was
over grazed. But when they started the permit use, they cut the sheep numbers down and
the forest has recovered a lot. You can see the improvements from when I started, shortly
after they got the permits until we quit. I can see a big difference. Ranchers were required
to take care of their permitted area.
RS:
How has it improved?
BP:
Your vegetation is allowed to grow up and to germinate. And grasses are coming back,
much more prevalent than they were before. Your forbs are in better shape. Just your
whole growth pattern in the whole forest is better. There was better distribution of
livestock
RS:
What’s your favorite place in the canyon?
BP:
Oh I’ve spent time in a lot of them. But probably one of my favorite places is a White
Bedground up on the Mount Logan permit. Right close to there is an area about 15 acres,
10-15 acres, of great big tall beautiful yellow flowers! And I don’t know the name of the
flower, should have checked it out, but they are absolutely beautiful. And they are very
good forage for sheep and elk and deer. But when we first went there, there wasn’t too
many elk. The elk population has increased since. And they may have killed those 15
acres out. I’d like to go up there this summer just to check it out and see. But that was
quite nearer this spring which is just South of the White Bedground. And there was a big
meadow there just of flowers, and that was one of the prettiest sights I have ever seen.
Those flowers were 6 foot tall.
RS:
6 foot tall yellow flowers?
BP:
Yeah, gold, kind of beautiful. In fact we have some same type out on the side of our
house. And they are beautiful in the summer.
RS:
How do you think that you or your activities have contributed to land use changes and
policies in Logan Canyon?
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�BP:
Well, the land use policies are already determined by the foresters. And by following the
rules and regulations that they lay down I think it’s improved the general welfare of the
canyon and are befitting for all of the people, for the recreation users, which I am one,
and for the grazers, for which I was one. I think it’s improved it for everything. I think
they are doing a good job with multiple use.
RS:
How have land use changes impacted you?
BP:
[This paragraph was revised by Mr. Peterson] I think that without land use changes the
quality of water we have in Logan City and the surrounding area would be much lower,
that we would be more prone to flooding in our canyons and waterways.
RS:
What was the erosion like before?
BP:
[This paragraph was revised by Mr. Peterson] The stream banks, waterholes and easily
accessible ground was overgrazed. The Forest Service did not have the money to fence,
make roads and fix the springs to get good distribution of the livestock. Most of this
work was done by the ranchers. The fences separated the sheep from cattle. This made it
possible to have accountability for permitee’s. We fixed the springs on our allotments.
We would dig out the spring, lay in perforated pipe, cover it with gravel and hook it to
galvanized pipe. This would lead to ponds or troughs for the livestock and wild life to
drink from. Because of increased water sources, trailing to water was not necessary
erosion of trails and riverbanks was reduced. Vegetation was not trampled down.
RS:
Did you have just sheep up there?
BP:
Yeah. That’s another good thing. Before there was cattle and sheep all mixed up. Now
they have separated the cattle and sheep into different allotments. So everybody’s
responsible for their own individual area. And that makes for better management for both
cattle and sheep. And it separates them from the stream users which is good.
RS:
So what is your overall impression of how land use policies are determined in Logan
Canyon in the Wasatch, Cache, Uinta National Forests?
BP:
Well, they are determined by professionals. Professional foresters whose job it is to make
sure that the forest is used to its best potential. And I think they are doing a pretty good
job of doing it.
RS:
What has been your relationship with forest service personal?
BP:
It’s been very positive all the way through.
RS:
And other land managers in the canyon have you had relationships with other ones?
BP:
[This paragraph was revised by Mr. Peterson] The Soil Conservation Service has always
been very helpful. I had a closer relationship with their representatives than with Forest
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�Service of BLM employees. They worked closely with the ranchers explaining and
showing us the results of different grazing programs.
RS:
How has land use policy influenced change over the past 50 years?
BP:
I think their realizing that recreation is a larger part of what the land use should be aimed
at and are developing the parks and developing the picnic areas which is a good thing.
And separating the cattle and the sheep from the riparian areas, I think are real good. It
should be done and its being done in a pleasing manner that is acceptable to the stream
users, picnickers, and to the livestock owners.
RS:
What changes have you seen in the land use policies in the canyon in the last 50 years?
BP:
Like I said the main thing I can see is permits and the separating of the sheep and the
cattle and getting the permits and keep them off the waterways. I think all that is going to
improve the canyon.
RS:
What other aspects have influenced land use policies in Logan Canyon?
BP:
Well, there’s always wilderness areas. Wilderness in Logan Canyon I don’t think is a
viable option. Looks to me like the best use is a multiple use and when you create
wilderness areas, if they expand the wilderness areas like some people want them to do, it
could be a disaster for recreationists and the livestock industry too. I think the wilderness
area is limiting the recreation use, to where a person my age can’t get up and use the
ground. It’s much better to have it opened up to motorized vehicles so I can get up and
see Mt. Naomi. If I could go up on a 4-wheeler I think it would be really great. And I
think a lot of other people would go there if there was an improved trail for A.T.V.s so
you could go up there and take a look. I think it would be a wonderful thing. I think
wilderness is ok in its place but I don’t think any wilderness expansion should be taking
place and maybe some areas declared wilderness should be eliminated.
RS:
Ok so do you have any personal involvement in land use or management in Cache
Valley?
BP:
Not at the present time, no.
RS:
Have you in the past had an involvement in making decisions about land use or
management?
BP:
Well I was President of the Cache Wool Growers for years… which consisted of the
wool growers that ran sheep in the Cache National Forest. I was president of the Logan
Board of Real Estate for two years. When I was in the real estate business, I wanted to
develop a Planned Unite Development. I helped write a PUD ordinance for Cache County
and put in the first PUD development, Sheep Creek Cove.
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�RS:
Have you had personal involvement in land use or management in other areas not in
Cache Valley?
BP:
No.
RS:
Are you a member of any associations that are involved with decision making?
BP:
No.
RS:
Have you ever tried to influence government actions, possibly thru an organization or
writing letters, going to meetings?
BP:
No. Well, I did when I was president of the Cache Wool Growers, and I was director of
the State Wool Growers for a number of years. Most positions I would write letters and
try to influence public opinion.
RS:
And what was that like?
BP:
Well, we just wanted to make sure all of the rights of permit holders were recognized and
it wasn’t a real active campaign but it was in case a wool bill or a tariff bill or something
came up we’d be interested in writing letters to a congressmen.
RS:
Do you have any special stories to tell about that? Any gains that you made while doing
that?
BP:
I don’t. I, we didn’t make too many gains.
RS:
Who were some of your most influential people in instructing you in your field, in the
ranching?
BP:
Wayne Cook and Halie Cox. Oh and Ben Haywood. Benjamin Haywood. He was good.
He was with the Soil Conservation Service.
RS:
Ok let’s just start with Wayne Cook. Is that C.O.O.K.?
BP:
Yeah. He was the professor of Range Management at USU.
Halie Cox was a graduate student. And he was a ranger, he was a graduate student when
we were running sheep and did experiment work on our range in the deserts. And he was
quite influential in my thinking about range management.
RS:
And then you said Ben Haywood.
BP:
Ben Haywood was a range specialist for the Soil Conservation Service. He worked
mainly with private ground. He had real success in showing ranchers how to improve
grazing practices. And how to get better returns from practices.
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�RS:
So he worked toward…
BP:
He worked for the Soil Conservation Service.
RS:
Can you tell me again why Halie Cox was so influential.
BP:
He was doing experimental work out there and I just got to know him and he would
explain things to me and help me out.
RS:
What kind of experiments would he do?
BP:
Grazing experiments on range use and plants and [?] the different grazing levels and
lower grazing, things like that.
RS:
Ok and Wayne Cook. Why was he so influential?
BP:
He was my professor that taught me range management courses that I took.
RS:
Who influenced you the most to continue in the ranching business?
BP:
Probably Ben Haywood.
RS:
What was the most critical policy that was enacted while you were working in Logan
Canyon?
BP:
I think the most critical thing was keeping the cattle and the sheep off of the riparian
areas of the streams. That’s when that started. And improving the watering holes so that it
was better distribution of livestock.
RS:
And was that the land management policy that impacted your operation, your land use the
most?
BP:
Mmm Hmm.
RS:
Do you have any other particular stories you would like to share?
BP:
Not that I can think of at this time.
RS:
Are there any books or writings that influenced either your land use beliefs or your
management practices?
BP:
Not that I can think of right now.
RS:
What world events have had the most impact on your professional life? What world
events have impacted your professional life?
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�BP:
Probably that sheep kill was the most important.
If you have any other questions don’t hesitate to call.
RS:
I will. I don’t want to be here too long today and I will take a look at what we have and
see if I did a good job or not since it was my first one. I appreciate you talking to me
though!
BP:
Well no problem at all! And anytime you need some more information if I can help don’t
hesitate to call.
RS:
Ok thank you very much!
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�
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/340">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/340</a>
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Hosted by: Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library
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2012-02-10
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Willard (Bill) Reed Petersen interview, 14 April 2008, and transcription
Description
An account of the resource
Mr. Peterson talks about growing up in Hyrum, Utah, his father's ranching and farming operations, working with his families’ sheep ranching operation in Cache National Forest and in Box Elder County. He talks about getting out of the sheep business due to a mysterious event that killed over 300 sheep in the mid 1950s that also caused many of the sheep to become sterile. After this, the family got out of the sheep ranching business. Additionally, Peterson talks about his education at Utah State University and University of Utah and going into the real estate business in Bear Lake Valley, as well as, local land conservation issues.
Creator
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Petersen, Willard Reed, 1926-
Contributor
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Smith, Rebecca (Interviewer)
Subject
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Petersen, Willard Reed, 1926- --Family
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Sheep--Utah--History
Sheep industry--Utah
Sheep ranchers--Utah
Sheep ranchers--Cache National Forest (Utah and Idaho)
Sheep--Feeding and feeds--Utah--Hyrum
Land use--Utah--Logan Canyon
Land use--Cache Valley (Utah and Idaho)
Grazing districts--Utah--Logan Canyon
Grazing--Cache National Forest (Utah and Idaho)
Canyons--Utah--Cache County--Recreational use
Ranching--Cache Valley (Utah and Idaho)
Farming--Cache Valley (Utah and Idaho)
Fishing--Utah--Cache County
Cache Wool Growers Association
Petersen Land & Livestock, Inc.
Range Management--Utah
Allotment of land--Utah
Natural resources--Management
Rangelands--Utah--Cache County
Rangelands--Utah--Box Elder County
Sheepherding--Utah
Petersen, Willard
Petersen, Howard Clark
Petersen, Stanford B.
Sheep--Mortality--Utah--Box Elder County
Real estate business--Bear Lake Valley (Utah and Idaho)
Land use--Law and legislation--Utah--Logan Canyon
Utah State University--Alumni and alumnae
Rangelands--Multiple use--Utah--Logan Canyon
Medium
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Oral history
Interviews
Spatial Coverage
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Logan Canyon (Utah)
Bear Lake Valley (Utah and Idaho)
BearLake County (Idaho)
Rich County (Utah)
Blacksmith Fork Canyon (Utah)
Hardware Ranch (Utah)
Box Elder County (Utah)
Rattlesnake Mountain (Utah)
Curtis Creek (Utah), Rock Creek (Cache County, Utah)
Left Hand Fork (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Utah
United States
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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1940-1949
1950-1959
1960-1969
20th century
Language
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eng
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 4 Fd. 4
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Inventory for the Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection can be found at: <a href="http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php">http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php</a>
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of the USU Fife Folklore Archives Curator, phone (435) 797-3493
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Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection
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FolkColl42bx4fd4BillPetersen
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14 April 2008
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2008-04-14
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Logan Canyon Reflections
-
http://highway89.org/files/original/1ea510c15a238ccf9fa7358fcb64fc32.mp3
f78c986a0fdab62b3571ef694644db75
http://highway89.org/files/original/cdd79f69f24af51026686026396d0e40.pdf
a76a08d31a66f0f33e03b8cae68995c3
PDF Text
Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Ted Seeholzer
Place of Interview:
Date of Interview:
Beaver Mountain Ski Area Office, Logan, Utah
November 19, 2008
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Brad Cole and Clint Pumphrey
Brad Cole
Recording Equipment:
Marantz PMD660 Digital Recorder
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Susan Gross
Randy Williams (2 March 2009 & July 2011)
Brief Description of Contents: Ted Seeholzer is the owner of the Beaver Mountain ski area in
Logan Canyon. He speaks about the history of Beaver Mountain (which has been owned by his
family since its inception), and his varying roles with the ski resort – beginning in childhood. He
also talks about interactions and his relationship with the Forest Service and Utah School and
Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) over the years.
Reference:
BC = Brad Cole (Interviewer; Associate Dean, USU Libraries)
CH = Clint Pumphrey (Interviewer; USU history graduate student)
TS = Ted Seeholzer
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with
brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 1: A]
BC:
Hi. This is Brad Cole from Special Collections and Archives at Utah State University.
Today is November 19 [2008]. And we’re in Logan, Utah visiting with Ted Seeholzer at
the Beaver Mountain Office – Beaver Mountain Ski Area Office. And also accompanying
me today is Clint Pumphrey, a [graduate] student at Utah State University.
Ted I always like to begin my interviews from the very beginning, [so] if you could tell
us when and where you born?
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�TS:
I was born in Logan, Utah – 1932; January 29, 1932. Seventy-six years ago.
BC:
And who were your parents?
TS:
Harold and Luella Seeholzer. They were both – my mom was born in Wellsville; my dad
in Logan.
BC:
And had they lived in the valley for quite some time?
TS:
All their life. Dad served no military time. And the furthest dad got away from Logan; he
went to New Zealand to help on the temple over there.
BC:
And your mother was from Wellsville you said.
TS:
Wellsville, yep. And her dad actually started the service station business in Cache Valley.
You can see the old – there used to be a service station between 1st and 2nd North, on the
east side of the road kind of where the Royal Bakery is there.
BC:
Um-hmm.
TS:
He started a service station there. One hundred years ago or more. I don’t have the
pictures handy here, but we do of course have them of that. So he was instrumental. He
also meddled in the horticulture business with Utah State many years ago. So our
family’s been active, not just the kids.
BC:
Um-hmm. So did you have a greenhouse then?
TS:
He had a cellar. That’s all they had was a cellar over there. They’d plant the trees, of
course harvest the apples and store them in there. At one time there was lots of orchards
in Wellsville; lots of orchards in Wellsville. I remember as a young person going over
there – the orchards. And he also had a cellar – it was a (what do you call them when they
have) a co-op type thing. And then he also had his own cellar that he would use for his
apples; and then he raised chickens at the same time. And I can still remember as a young
man and watching them count all the eggs and this, that and the other. He was a very
energetic old chap. You know, he was a “Svede” – Swede.
[Laughing]
And Grandma was a Dane. And they had their coffee every morning with their lumps of
sugar. I can still remember that. You know, maybe I’m getting off the subject here, I
don’t know.
BC:
That’s fine. So what were their names?
TS:
They were Brobie.
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�BC:
Brobie.
TS:
Don’t ask me Grandma Brobie’s name before she was married, I don’t know that. I don’t
recall that.
Did you got to school at Logan High?
BC:
No, I’m actually from Pocatello.
TS:
From “Pocaroostie”?
BC:
Yeah.
TS:
Can I give you a little more history there. My granddad’s brother had a cobble,
shoemaker, right across Logan High there on the corner – 100 years ago back in the ‘50s,
the old fellar did. You know, my family’s got quite a history here in the valley.
BC:
Sounds like it.
TS:
Yeah, yeah; a lot of history.
BC:
So what were some of your memories of growing up in Logan in the 1930s I guess?
TS:
Yeah. I know that my dad’s a plather by trade, okay. He’d put lath on it for you, plaster.
Of course during the Depression they did anything they could. He talks about working
with the Forest Service on the PWA [Public Works Administration agency of New Deal]
type stuff: going and roofing buildings, or whatever they could do to make a dollar. Dad
also trapped. His dad was a game warden at that time: muskrats and beaver, that’s where
some of the income was. I was born on West 3rd South and at that time Dad raised foxes
and mink for market. Shortly after that the Russians came in with all of their furs and of
course the mink markets went to the deuce [devil]. Dad was forced to sell and then
continue with his lathing. He still trapped rats; we still have some of the traps they used.
And like I say, his dad was a Fish and Game man.
I remember stories about Old Ephraim. Dad and his brothers chased Old Ephraim; the
same as the Crookston stories that you’ve heard. And I can’t remember the gentleman’s
name that finally ended up catching Old Ephraim. [Frank Clark; see USU’s digital
collection of Old Ephraim materials online.]
I know that our family lived on game: deer and elk and fish and ducks and pheasant;
[these] were extremely important to our meals. Dad used to illegally hunt ducks for
market. Dad was a pool player I guess. Down at the old Dee Woodall Pool Hall he’d
bring those ducks in there and throw them in the corner; you could take two for a dollar,
put the money on the counter. That’s what Dad bought shells with and whatever else he
needed. But I do remember that as a young person.
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�But I also remember the old automobiles and our trips to the canyon. [Getting choked up]
This canyon is pretty important (excuse the tears), but it’s been alive forever. I started
helping my folks [inaudible] when I was six years old and we’re still here. We are the
longest family owned ski area in America. I’m proud of that; pretty proud of that.
Anyway, I’ll try and collect myself here. But it’s touching. And you’ll find that the more
you dig the more it means to me. So anyway, that’s what I recall.
We did move from there on South Main, Logan River was right in our backyard. We
could fish anytime when the stream was open. And we always hunted ducks and
pheasants and those types of things. Dad got involved in the ski area in 1936 when it was
at the Beaver – and then it went from there up to the Sinks. Now, if you know where the
Sinks are, [they are] about a mile and a half above the state sheds up on the summit. It
was there from, oh, we finally came back to the Beaver in 1947 when money was
appropriated for the road through the county and the Forest Service and the state. Then
the Forest Service was very instrumental in bringing the water to the area. It was in ’39
that my dad and another gentleman took over the ski area and made it go [and we’ve]
been there ever since.
BC:
Who was the other gentleman?
TS:
Don Shupe.
BC:
Don Shupe.
TS:
Don Schupe was an auto body man. Shupe Auto body – it’s now (it’s no longer Shupe) –
shoot on the corner of 10th North and Main.
BC:
Oh, is that Miller’s?
TS:
Millers! Don Shupe was a first cousin to Charlie Miller, or brother-in-law or whatever the
situation was. And Don was there a couple of years and his back gave out on him and so
he had to bow out of the picture. Jane Johnson, who was married to Max Johnson
(LeGrand Johnson’s son) – it was her dad. (I mean just to give you a little relationship to
people that are still alive.) And we see Jane once in a while and we kind of kid about it a
little bit – what might have been, you know. So anyway, that’s the story. And I don’t
know how far you want to go along with this.
We came back in 1947; we put a rope-tow in. And then in 1948 we put in a T-bar.
There’s a big picture around here somewhere of it. Put in the T-bar and that run there for
a lot of years. That was kind of a make-shift – there was chairlifts in those days, but
money wasn’t available for us to do that. There wasn’t enough skiing public, lots of
things you can say why it wasn’t necessary. The size of Cache Valley wasn’t – the
population that skied was very small (and it’s still not very big in relationship for a major
business).
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�CP:
So who were most of other people who came to Beaver Mountain? Were they from the
Valley?
TS:
That started it?
CP:
Just to ski there?
TS:
Yeah. And it still is. We probably have less than – unless you want to call it college
student as a vacation skier or a transient or whatever word you want to use – then we
have about 1 to 1.5% of our people are out of state or transient skiers or vacation skiers or
whatever word you would attach to it. And we don’t see many of those. We’re seeing
more because of developments at Bear Lake. Wasatch Front is where a good share of
them come from. But we do have people who have timeshares and once they have come
and skied here we seem to get them back. The problem with that is the duration of the
sport that you do, that you’re real active in it: three years, five years, ten years? How long
did you play tennis? How long did you play golf? How long did you play badminton?
See, so this interest span, you have to have new all the time to replace the guy that’s
dropping out. That’s a pretty big deal actually in our sport.
You had a question?
CP:
Yeah. Just to go back to when you first started working at the ski resort – what kind of
responsibilities did you have then?
TS:
Up at the Sinks – now I’m five, six, seven years old; I was born in ’32, so ’39 is what?
[I’d be seven?]
BC:
Yeah.
TS:
Dad built a building there out of weedy-edge siding. I don’t know if you know what that
is or not – that’s the edges when you cut timber, you don’t cut the bark off? Okay, that’s
weedy-edge. Dad built a small building down there – I think 12 by 14 or 12 by 12 – I
can’t recall. And Mother – that building was to serve as a warming hut and food service.
Now I forgot the question you asked me.
CP:
What did you do? What were you responsible for?
TS:
Oh, what did I did do? Okay, alright. Our function as kids of course was to, of course we
weren’t running lifts in them days, but we would bring the food service from up on the
road, down to that building for Mother – the foods were all fixed at home: the chilies, the
barbecues, that stuff was all fixed at home. And we’d carry it, all in boxes. Dad pulled a
trailer behind the car (brown ’39 Chevrolet), I can remember just like it was yesterday.
And then we would take that stuff down there and then we would bring it back. Sure, we
had a little snow to shovel, but you know, six-seven year old, you don’t get a whole
bunch out of them other than lip service. Then as we got older, 12 year old, 13 year old,
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�we were running – I was running a lift then. Today they would put you in jail if you did
that.
BC:
Now up at the Sinks, there weren’t any lifts then?
TS:
We had this cable (we called it a rope tow); it was like a rope-tow except it was a 9/16”
cable. And we had some hooks (I don’t have one here) that you would hook on the cable,
wrap it around you and it would pull you up the mountain. Now, how did you keep that
cable from burying you in the snow? Well on the highest spots we’d go cut an aspen, lay
it on the high spots and the cable would run on that. Of course, then we only skied
Saturday and Sunday, and there was a heck of lot more snow fell then than there is today,
I’m here to tell you. Talk about global warming, talk about whatever you want: we don’t
have the snow today we used to have. So it was always a big deal then to dig out of our
buildings, we left shovels outside – couldn’t get into them if we didn’t have a shovel! So
then those were the type things that Norm Mecham and I (Norm, he lives in Arizona or
somewhere now). But that was our responsibility to go up and dig it out.
My brother worked when he was older – he was almost eight years older than I am – so
he had more responsibilities. Then he went away to school and blaty, blaty, blah. But he
went in the military is where he went. ’42 he went and Uncle Sam joined him up.
And then in 1947 we came back here [Beaver Mountain]. But in those days ski crowds
were different than they are today. Utah State used to have a big winter carnival deal up
there. And when you go up there if you look on your left-hand side going up – it’s pretty
steep mountain there – and they used to build huge snow sculptures. I don’t mean these
snowmen kids make out in their backyards; I mean 12, 15, 18 foot high snow sculptures
of like the pyramid stuff is what they would build; or horse and buggy-type thing.
Literally shape them. It was a big deal. Somewhere I have those pictures. I don’t have
them now.
BC:
And that would have been in the 1940s?
TS:
That would have been in the ‘40s, yep. But see to prior to that Utah State held their
winter carnivals down at the old CC Camp [CCC: Civil Conservation Corps], right there
on that hill. Yeah. And Logan High used to hold a winter carnival down there also.
BC:
And the CC Camp, that was at the Sinks area?
TS:
No, The CC Camp is – do you know where the road to go to Tony Grove is?
BC:
Um-hmm.
TS:
Okay. Right across the street from that, they call it USU Training Center now.
BC:
Right.
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�TS:
But that’s the old CC Camp. And of course that come out of the Depression, like the
PWA did. And Utah State held their winter carnival – because it wasn’t until 1939 that
the road to Logan Canyon was open to Bear Lake; ’39 it opened to go to Bear Lake and
that’s what permitted us to move the ski area from down where it was, up to the Sinks.
Because we had to walk in; we parked down on the highway down there and walked into
the ski area.
BC:
At Beaver?
TS:
At Beaver, yeah. We didn’t go around the road – we cut through, you know; walked
across the creek and walked through the draw I’m telling you where the rock deal was?
That’s the canyon we went up. Now I’m jumping all over, but my feeble mind doesn’t
always work in a straight [line]!
CP:
Yeah, well since you mentioned the road, maybe we could talk about that a little bit. In
the early days – in the ‘40s when you first started having a big role in managing the ski
resort – what was it like getting up to the ski resort through the canyon from Logan?
TS:
In most cases the road was plowed like it is now. Of course, let’s be honest – the plow
trucks then probably went 20 miles an hour; today they’ll go 40-plus, or 30-plus,
whatever the turns will permit them to. The roads were in good shape, but what would
happen was the road would narrow and narrow and narrow because they didn’t have the
quality equipment to blow that snow off the side 100 yards or 100 feet or whatever. And
they did not use graders (patrollers with the wing on them) where they could come along
and slice the top of that off so the next time the truck come it could blow it over the bank.
And I’ll guarantee you they’ve made strides in building roads to help winter. Because
you never build a road lower than the sub-grade out the side. Because when the wind
blows, all the snow goes on the road. So you elevate the road so the snow blows crossed
it. And they have done that in several places in the canyon. But the road equipment today
is far superior. You have better tires on your automobile; you also have more four-wheel
drives. So driving today is much easier than it was then. But in conversation with a lot of
ladies that drive, it’s a terrible road! It’s unsafe! It ought to be closed! My goodness lady!
[Laughing]
CP:
So what was the condition of the actual road in the ‘40s when you first started working?
Was it paved all the way?
TS:
It was paved all the way – it was paved to Garden City. But it was much, much narrower.
Over the years they have been able to widen the road in various places. Environmental
restraints stop the road, like in the Forks, on up through there – environmental restraints
have inhibited the width of that: right, wrong or indifferent it depends on which side of
the fence you’re on. My complaint about the narrow road is that one tree blown across
the road can stop traffic and I’m saying, “Wait a minute. Is this modern times or is this
horse and buggy stuff?” And that’s one little complaint I have about some of the
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�restrictions. I am very environmental. But I’m also on the safe side for you and I to travel
the roads.
BC:
Yeah.
TS:
That’s where I’m coming from on that. We could do things to ruin that ski area, but we
won’t do it; we won’t do it. Because once we take all the trees, once we push all the
brush off and those things, now we’ve ruined the aesthetics and you’re probably not
going to come up there. At least that’s our thinking; now maybe our thinking isn’t good.
But that is our thinking on it. We’re in need of some more parking lot but we don’t have
any place to go other than start cutting down trees. We’re not very enthusiastic about that.
We’re in conversation with the state to use some of the flatland down below and they’re
not very enthusiastic about that! Because of aesthetics. So what do you do? You say
okay, we’ve only got parking for 800 cars and when anybody else comes, we send you
home? Is that what you do? I guess it is. When the restaurant is full you sit down and wait
until somebody leaves, don’t you?
BC:
Yeah, that’s true.
TS:
And that’s the only answer I have right now because my wife is part of this; one daughter
and one son and their significant others. And I think they feel like I do, that we’re not
willing to cut down trees to make a place for you to park: right, wrong or indifferent. So
anyway, I keep getting off the subject.
CP:
That’s fine. I just wanted to ask you I guess during the 1960s they started to widen some
of the road down here closer to Logan; and then during the ‘70s and ‘80s it was kind of in
a gridlock because you know, they had to do the environmental assessment on the rest of
the road to see if they could widen it further or straighten it further. And there was a lot of
discussion I guess, in the valley and elsewhere, about how they should go about doing
that. And there were some people I guess who were very, very much for the straightening
and widening so they could get back and forth to the ski area, to Bear Lake –
TS:
Well not just ski area, but Bear Lake, but consider one other thing; think about one other
thing besides you and I to ski and to camp and that. This guy that lives in Bear Lake – he
doesn’t have access to a quality hospital. He has access to an ambulance, he has access to
an ambulance – but he is 40 miles away if he lives in Garden City, from a quality
hospital. Now do we deprive him of that privilege?
CP:
Right.
TS:
He’s got a hospital in Montpelier that’s like this one down here was 10 years ago. See. So
there’s more to it than just a place for you and I to drive; there’s other people to think
about to in the use of that –
CP:
So when all that debate was going on, did the people at the ski resort at all get involved
with the discussion with the –
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�TS:
I sit on the board on Logan Canyon to decide – not decide – put input into the decision to
do what we do with the highway. We are restricted extremely by the Corps of Engineers.
The Corps of Engineers will decide what you’re going to do. Let me give you one
example of what our group did just on the last section from the dug way – from the twin
bridges – up.
Okay originally there was a design on that big cut right at the top of the twin bridges, to
take and cut that side off and go out around the side where all the timber is. We sat there
and looked at that and said, “What kind of a fool’s trick is that? Why don’t we go this
way, move the bridge downstream, we’ve got a barren hole here that we could lay the
sides back, whatever degree you want. We’re going to cut down a few trees, very few,
and you pull the road out of the shade and you put it up here on the hill and you don’t cut
down all this old forest.” Well imagine that! Somebody else can think just a little bit too!
So it’s just things like that, that they have people like me on the board because we all
have tunnel vision occasionally.
BC:
And that board – you called the Logan Canyon Board?
TS:
I’ll think of the name of it in a minute. There’s ten people sit on it. And you know what?
I’m the only one that doesn’t have my hand in the county or state’s pocket. I’m the only
person that doesn’t draw a paycheck from a government agency.
BC:
So that was a sort of inner-governmental board?
TS:
Yeah, it’s still there. It’s still in effect. I would be getting called in – they’re getting close
to doing a piece from the Beaver on up over to the Summit. My mind is getting weaker,
but I’ll think of the name of that board in a minute. There’s ten of us on there but I’m the
only one that doesn’t belong to a government agency.
BC:
So how do you feel with all the input and push and take – how do you feel like the road
project came out?
TS:
I think it was good. See, had you been here 30 years ago that road from the head of the
dugway was going to have cut right across the mountains and come in at Ricks Spring. It
would have crossed the river twice. See the thinking on roads has changed so much in the
last 50 years or 40 years. Years ago it was a straight line was the shortest route and the
best route. Well, in some cases yes, but many cases, no. That would have been a hell of a
mess if we’d have cut through and built a bridge across the road there and then cut that
mountain and crossed the river again to come in at Rick’s Spring. And see you’d have the
same thing at Hattie’s Grove. Instead of going around the bend and up – cut a chunk on
the upper end of Hattie’s Grove off and Bear Hole, then up to the cattle guard. To me that
wasn’t an appropriate route in those days – or even today even. So by getting more
people together and talking about it – and you’re always going to have conflicts. No, I
think they’ve done a good job on the road.
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�Mr. Weston who used to sit on the State’s – he used to sit on the UDOT Board [Utah
Department of Transportation] (he used to be the president – they have a committee just
like everybody else, the state does). He thought, “Well,” he said, “We’re going to get this
middle section of the road done. We’re going to get that done eventually.” He says, “Now
what we have is an hourglass. We’ve got good road on this end. We’ve got good road on
this end, and we shrink down in the middle.” He thought that the public would demand
that they do something through there. Well guess what? It won’t be in my lifetime. It
won’t be in my lifetime that that will happen. And there’s not much in my mind that they
can do there. Where do you go? You’ve got [a] steep mountain here and you’ve got river
there. Where are you going? Are you going to put an overhand over the river and let them
drive out there?
[Laughing]
You going to put up on the mountain 100 yards to get 10 more feet of road? I don’t think
so. The only thing that I can see that gets obnoxious is that they elevate the road, raise the
road up itself and leave the mountains. That ain’t gonna happen either. See, that’s what
they were going to do in Little Cottonwood Canyon because of avalanches.
BC:
Hmm. They were going to elevate it?
TS:
No. What they were going to do is they were going to build a wall here and build a bridge
over the road – just the opposite – and let the avalanches go over the road. Oh yeah!
There was a big study on that. Because it’s big dollars! Huge dollars! And believe me,
money talks! If you don’t think so, look at the last election.
[Laughing]
Let’s not get into that one. But anyway, you know we’ve done a lot of things at the resort
and a lot of changes take place. Roads are important; I’ve been screaming for seven or
eight years now that they get our entrance to the Beaver changed. And I finally got it this
summer. Because see, what was happening there when you came out of the Beaver you
would start a right hand turn – here comes the highway and you couldn’t see back up the
road to see if anybody was coming because the snow was piled too high. And let’s be
honest – the State can’t be responsible for every little piece of snow that you and I can’t
see over; they just can’t do it. And so by making it come straight out at the road, now you
and I can see up and down the road. Built a passing lane. Good. We haven’t had many
accidents – to my knowledge we’ve never had a real serious accident there; we’ve never
had a death. So maybe it wasn’t all that important. I’ve been cussed by a couple of people
because it is a little inconvenient to turn and then have to get down, whereas the other
way they’d be on the turn. But that’s okay, they’ll get over it. I think it’s a good thing. So
yes.
BC:
So after you moved back down to Beaver when did the first major lifts come in? You said
you had a rope tow and T-bar?
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�TS:
We had a rope-tow and then we put the T-bar in. Put the T-bar in ’48.
BC:
Um-hmm. And how far did the T-bar go up the mountain?
TS:
Okay. The T-bar went up about 1800-1900 feet. That was in ’47-’48. Then in 1960 we
put the first chair lift in. That would be the Face Lift. It’s still there and it’s still in the
same place. It hasn’t been remodeled; it does have a new drive; it does have new bull
wheels top and bottom. Still use the same chairs, new rope; same terminals. So it’s
basically the same place.
The ticket office that’s there now was built in ’47. One of these days we’re going to find
enough money to get it out of there. And in 1964 we put the Little Beaver Lift in. And the
same year we put that in we built the Lodge. Now the Lodge has only been remodeled six
times since we originally built it. And we’ve got a big addition going on it right now.
And then in 1967 we put the T-bar in – which neither one of you I think has seen run. It
was one of them good ideas that didn’t work. [Laughs] And then in 1969-70 we put the
Dream Lift in. And then six years ago, whatever that was, we put Marge’s Triple in. Then
we built a tube hill and that was another one of those good ideas that didn’t work. The
only thing that we salvaged out of that is the yurt and the yurt deck. We turned that into –
well we rent it out during the summer, okay. But now it’s rented every weekend in the
winter (with family groups or birthday parties or whatever; some are a few weddings,
things like that, family reunions, church groups, scout groups). But the yurt wasn’t a
terrible investment, but the lift [to tow tubers up the hill] was. Of course we were able to
sell that so that wasn’t too serious.
CP:
So when – I guess maybe we’re jumping ahead a little bit – so when snowboarding first
became popular was there any discussion at all about what Beaver Mountain would allow
and what they wouldn’t?
TS:
No. In the original – when snowboards first came out they had an organization (don’t ask
me the name of it) that they had for boarders and had a gentleman from Salt Lake that
would come up here, a young person. And he would watch you with your board and see
what you could do with your board. And when he decided that you had the ability to get
on the lift and off the lift with your board then he would give you a piece of paper or slip
that said we may sell you a lift ticket because you now have the ability to board and get
off the lift.
Okay, at first we restricted them from Little Beaver. Why did we do that? Because we felt
that the ability of a boarder to handle his board, we were concerned about mixing two
beginners. We also used to keep them off the ridge for the same thing. And all that
happened there was it created a big argument between our ski patrol and the boarders,
because the boarders were always deaf to the ski patrol, to see if they could get down
there without getting caught. But then what happened about the third year with boards – I
jumped over this – boards did not have medal edges. Just like skis didn’t used to have
medal edges. And so the industry said, “Wait a minute. You have got to have medal
edges.” And why? Control, control. And so then they started to put medal edges on them
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�and I think probably better bindings and blaty-blaty-blaty-blah. And today it’s – I think
there’s only three ski areas in the United States that don’t permit them and two of them
are in Utah: Alta and Deer Valley.
And that’s a business decision they’ve made. So I don’t think you ever will see them at
Deer Valley; I think someday possibly at Alta. And the reason I say that – these kids, the
skiers and snowboarders now – they hang together, they all come up in the same car or
whatever. They’re not like before, in my recollection of snowboards is that they were one
bunch and skiers were another bunch; they didn’t co-mingle, but they do today. They ski
the mountain together, they ride the same chair and eat lunch and all that. So Alta
(between us girls) is actually losing skier days. Finest ski area in America, there ain’t
nothing better than Alta.
BC:
Yeah.
TS:
Bar none. It’s the best. Their older set that skied there forever – the Spence Eccles and
those types – do not want to mingle with the snowboarders because they’re a little lower
grade of people.
[Laughing]
That’s the philosophy! And they have convinced Donald and before him Chick Martin,
that Alta would be a better ski area without them. I do know of some things that we have
problems with boarders. One is visibility, and we do have more collisions with boarders
than we do with skiers. That is a problem. They’re smart-mouthed (boarders), but you
know what? There are smart-mouthed skiers too!
CP:
Yeah.
TS:
It doesn’t all – just because you’ve got a board on you you can use bad language because
you could put skis on you and use the same language. That’s kind of a far-fetched deal
there. But no, boarding has changed a great deal and it’s probably 47-50% of our
business. We haven’t done a little survey in a while. Depends on the day; depends on the
day how many boarders we get. I think boarders are becoming more acceptable than they
were 15 years ago, or 10 or five even. I have concerns over some over the other
gimmicks that we’re using: bicycles on the mountain on snow. I have concerns over that.
We talk about – I don’t know if you’ve ever – do you ski?
CP:
I do.
TS:
Okay. Have you seen them up there on their – they’re not a bicycle with tires but they sit
on it, yeah. I have a problem with them in that they don’t have anything on their feet.
And so when they get on and get off the lift they can leave bad marks in the snow.
CP:
Right.
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�TS:
I think they have good control. Most of the people I’ve seen on them are a little older set.
100 years ago when Merlin Olsen and them guys were skiing we had what we called a
“sit ski” and it was very similar to these. And my hell, when them guys would fall they’d
leave a crater a size of this room!
[Laughing]
And not just him; I just can remember – I’m trying to think of the other guy that used to
play football same time Merlin did. Both of them skied. My hell they’d get in the chair on
the Face Lift together, the chair would almost come off the rope! [Laughing] Because,
you know, they were both big people. But we don’t have them to rent and we probably
won’t. How many things do you let on your mountains? You know? I think there’s a limit
to what should be permitted on a mountain to have fun with. If somebody else wants to
do it, that’s fine. And that’s Alta’s thinking on the snowboard and that’s Deer Valley’s
thinking on the snowboard: let them go someplace else. There is a place for them so,
there you go.
CP:
So I assume you’re a skier yourself?
TS:
Yep.
CP:
How long have you been doing that? All [of] your life?
TS:
Yeah. I won my first race at Alta at the age of 12.
CP:
Yeah?
TS:
I won at Snowbasin at the age of ten, before they had a lift. I won a metal at the NC2A
[NCAA].
CP:
Okay.
TS:
So, been around a little bit; been around a little bit.
BC:
So have you tried to snowboard?
TS:
No!
[Laughing]
No, something we ought to have at our resort is we ought to rent padding for first-timers.
[Laughing]
And thumb restraints. Because that’s what we’re hurting; we’re hurting thumbs, elbows
and shoulders with boarders.
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�BC:
Um-hmm; right.
TS:
The thing about boarding – a boarder the first day and a half, two days has more trouble
than the skiers. But by the third day he run off and hide from skiers. It’s a faster learned
sport. At least that’s what we’re seeing; even with or without lessons, it doesn’t seem to
make that much difference. I don’t know why it’s easier to stand on a plank with two feet
than it is to have two feet out here. I don’t understand that. But they do, they just run and
hide from skiers. Yeah.
CP:
Um-hmm.
TS:
The demand that we have now for board use – we entertain a lot of schools. Last year I
think we had 32 different schools. Some of them came twice, but not many – and the big
demand was for boards. It cramps us to have enough boards for all the kids that want
them. Another thing that’s happening in the ski industry in the last three years really has
been strong is the helmets. And we have some helmets to rent, but on the weekends we
pretty much rent whatever (I don’t know we’ve got 12 or 15 of them). When these kids’
schools come, every kid wants a helmet.
CP:
Um-hmm.
TS:
Are they necessary? I don’t know. I think there’s a deterrent with them. If you’re not
going to fall and hit a tree, I don’t think you need one. If you’re going to hit the tree the
next turn, then I think you better have one on!
[Laughing]
But they don’t solve all the problems; I’m sure they solve a hell of a lot of them, but they
don’t solve them all. Like the girl that hit the tree up at Beaver last winter and broke her
neck. But she hit – I mean I’m sure she had good speed – but it just pshh and that was it.
If she’d had a concrete block on there she would’ve still done it; it’s just one of those
things. And they happen. Thank goodness that’s the only second one in our ski area
career, you know we feel good. We don’t feel good about it; we feel good that we’ve
only had two.
BC:
Could you tell us a little bit about your relationship with the Forest Service? How does
the ski area work within the National Forest? I assume you don’t own all the land, but do
you own some of it, or . . . ?
TS:
None.
BC:
None. Okay.
TS:
Incidentally right now it is not owned by the National Forest. It’s owned by the SITLA.
You know SITLA is the School Institute for Trust Land.
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�BC:
Right, okay.
TS:
Years ago, early, early in life doing business (and I’m talking now when I’m 15, 16, 17
years old) listening to my dad talk to Owen Despain and all the other Forest Rangers that
we’ve had; and MJ Roberts and on and on – Dave . . .
BC:
Baumgartner.
TS:
Yeah. Until environmental thing became strong we could do about whatever we wanted.
In other words if we wanted to cut a trail here, we could cut a trail there; if we wanted to
build a road here, we could build a road here. And then as the environmental movement
got stronger, now we were more restricted; we had to do assessments and blahty-blahtyblah. And I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, but you asked about the association.
BC:
Right.
TS:
Life with MJ Roberts, when he was Ranger up here, became almost unbearable.
BC:
And when would he have been Ranger?
TS:
Dave Baumgartner replaced him.
BC:
Okay. So Dave came at about 1990 –
TS:
Yeah, 1990-something. But see MJ Roberts had a long, long span. MJ Roberts and I did
not get along; at all. I guess we were both too hard-headed.
BC:
[Laughing]
TS:
Dad got along with MJ. But I couldn’t. MJ insisted on – we wanted to drill for water –
MJ wouldn’t let us drill for water. You know why? Because he didn’t want a ski area on
the National Forest. We had to have water! We were getting two gallons a minute from
the Logan Canyon side through a pipe that was buried that deep [gesturing]. We had
winters that that froze up – then what did we do? We hauled water up there in milk trucks
and pumped up to the reservoir and then feed it back in during the day for our restrooms.
There was things that wanted to go on Mount Logan that MJ – that would take power up
there to run the microwaves and stuff that’s up there – MJ about had a fit! He wouldn’t
let them put them on the poles because that was visible, and he also wouldn’t let them dig
a trench because of erosion. So he was kind of anti-everything. The forest itself I don’t
think was that way. You have to understand that every Forest Ranger runs his own
district as if he owned it.
BC:
Um-hmm.
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�TS:
Then when Dave Baumgartner got in – and others – life became a little easier because
they could see all they was doing was tying our hands. There is a demand for skiing;
there is a demand for picnic grounds; there is a demand for motor bikes. We have to have
sacrifice areas. It can’t all be trees and cows and deer and elk. That forest is used by
everybody; we all own it. We can’t destroy it; we can’t destroy it, but wise use. The
difference between an MJ Roberts and Dave Baumgartner was let’s see what we can do
and do it right.
Fred Lebar was my mentor and he was Assistant Ranger under MJ Roberts. Fred Lebar
could see – if I told you where we took the material on top of the mountain to build the
Dream Lift, you’d call me a fibbing liar. I mean we pulled everything on top of the
mountain behind dozers up roads that were that steep. Because MJ didn’t want a road
built (which would have been much nicer). You go up there in the summer, you look up
the rig and you see that road.
BC:
Yeah, huh.
TS:
We wouldn’t have had to build that road if he’d been not so dang hard-headed. So what
happens? You build a road straight up a mountain – which way does water run? Straight
down. You can build [in] all the cross members you want; until the sheep lay in them and
knock them down and then you’re right back where you started again. But anyway, after
Fred Lebar came in, I talked some sense into Fred; he talked MJ into letting us drill for
water. He talked him into building better roads; a road that was out of sight out of mind
to the top of the mountain. You can’t see it from the highway anywhere, and we could
use it without all the watershed problems, this, that and the other. Then President Clinton
made the Escalante Staircase down there a National Monument.
BC:
Monument, yeah.
TS:
Underneath that evidently is a lot of coal. And of course SITLA owned that land, but
when they made it a National Park now SITLA was booted out. So in order to satisfy
SITLA to replenish their income, they gave SITLA the privilege of choosing the land that
they would like to own to replace what they had lost down there. Well that went on for
two years and the attorneys fought and fought and finally the President stepped in and
said, “Hey this is bullshit. You take what you need without disturbing the forest and the
forest will relinquish it and do all these trades.”
Well SITLA owned 17,000 acres of land in Franklin Basin. SITLA has one thing in mind,
and that’s to make money. That’s their sole function is to make money. They were
making somewhere between $2500 and $3000 a year leasing that out to sheep and cows.
Not very much is it? The first year they claimed and took over Beaver Mountain they got
a check for $30,000 – which would you rather own?
[Laughing]
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�You know? You don’t have to be too bright to figure that one out. The difference
between SITLA and the forest is that SITLA wants you to do things that make money,
because if you make money, we make money. Now, we run stuff by SITLA – we just had
a meeting with them here a while ago. We’re up against a master plan; the county says
we got to do a new one. So we met with SITLA and told them of things we wanted to do
and they pretty much approved everything except a parking lot down on the road. Well,
okay if they’re not willing to do that then we’re going to have to restrict people (some
days) that want to come skiing. That’s just the way it works. Other than that, we pretty
much have a green light. We do need more water if we ever want to make snow. We have
enough water to give you a drink and flush the toilet. But if we ever want to make snow
we do not have enough.
SITLA would love to take all that land down there and develop it. I think it’s a ways off.
I think it’s a long ways off after seeing – well we’ve all seen. We have some friends in
Bear Lake that want to do some things with us up there to try and entice people to buy
their property. And I talked to them the other day and they said, “Forget that for awhile
because there isn’t any money.” There isn’t any money.
BC:
Yeah.
TS:
But that’s the difference. One wants you to do things to make money, the other was more
apprehensive about growth, about growth. We never see SITLA. The only time we see
them is when we send them a check!
[Laughing]
BC:
So when you worked with the Forest Service did you actually have to buy a lease from
them? Or how does that -- ?
TS:
Okay. SITLA and the forest – it used to be that we could get a ten year lease, then it went
twenty, okay? Large ski area that have to borrow millions and millions of dollars, the
banks wouldn’t loan them any money. So it took about six or seven years of the National
Ski Area Association to go to Congress and say, “Look, we have got to extend the lease
that permits on these ski areas because these people can’t grow. We need the long term to
borrow money. We don’t need more land until we need more.” I mean you know how
that works, you know?
BC:
Yeah.
TS:
I don’t need more potatoes until I empty my plate you know? And so finally they got the
Forest Service to give us a 40 year permit; 40 year permit. SITLA doesn’t like it. I don’t
care whether SITLA likes it or not! If I’m going to spend millions of dollars I want to
know that my permit is safe; I want to know that my permit is safe. I’m not going up
there to invest millions in this place and some attorney in Salt Lake that sits on SITLA’s
board and says, “That’s too long of a lease.” I don’t give a damn what he thinks! You
want to put your money into it Jack? So they’ve been pretty good.
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�They have wanted to re-write it. We have two permits there because at one time on the
Beaver, on the Dream Lift – there’s 31 acres there on a run we call Gentle Ben that
belonged to the forest. So (this is after the land trade) then we had to get another permit
for that. Wait a minute, maybe I’m telling you the wrong story here. That was state land,
that’s right. That was state land when it was forest because that little piece in there
belonged to the state. The state owned the other side. So we had to get a permit from
SITLA to use that 31 acres. Well now we’re still carrying that 31 acres and we’re
carrying the other one for 1000 acres. And they’re kind of holding that over our head a
little bit. Instead of putting both of them together (it would save us a little bit of money,
but no very darn much). They want to re-write the permit and go from a 40 year permit
(we’re good until 2038). And see then what we want in a permit is an automatic
extension for five years and five years. Now, how good is our permit? I don’t know.
BC:
Yeah.
TS:
Until somebody really tests it and somebody wants to own Beaver Mountain and wants to
kick us out, I guess that’s the day we’ll test it. My personal opinion is, the way it would
really be tested if somebody came in and wanted to develop all this down here, wanted to
take this 3000 acres and they wanted the ski area to do it and so they put the bite on the
state, says, “We won’t do it unless we own the ski area.” Then I think you’d start to see
some fur fly. I think that’s when it would get down dirty and ugly. But that’s not going to
happen in my lifetime. Because the money isn’t out there to buy. Bear Lake’s got what?
500 lots over there to sell?
BC:
Yeah.
TS:
Why would you buy one at Beaver Mountain? If you wanted to use Bear Lake’s you’ve
got the 12-15 mile travel; you could own one at Bear Lake and sit on the lake in the golf
course, if you want to go skiing you drive your 13 miles, go skiing and come back to your
place. That’s what I think. To me, Beaver Mountain is not a very attractive place, unless
that’s all you want to do and have a summer home. Then Beaver Mountain is not a very
attractive place. Whoever does it has a got a big row to hoe: they’ve got to bring more
power in. Now sewage is the big problem; we can bring power in and we can drill for
water – but something’s got to happen to that sewage.
CP:
Yeah.
TS:
And if you come in there with a 500 unit development or 200 unit development – that’s a
hell of a lot of sewage.
CP:
You can’t just get a septic tank, you know.
TS:
That’s BIG septic tank! We have seven septic tanks. We have seven septic tanks and we
pump them twice a year. Knock on wood, our drain fields are still holding up. See, a lot
of that land up there is clay.
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�BC:
Yeah.
TS:
And clay doesn’t take water. Well, when we hit a rock bed we just jump up and down!
We just jump up and down. But you know, I don’t think it’s going to happen for awhile.
But that was SITLA’s mission: to make money for the state of Utah.
BC:
Right.
TS:
And they do make a lot of money. They do make a lot of money for the state. They have
coal fields and that down there that are generating $100,000 a month! That’s a lot of
money for the school systems! A lot of money, that’s fine. The only thing I object to is
that Cache County charges us property tax on that land – not on the lift and that (they
charged on that, and that’s fine), but they are charging us property tax on that (I call it
real property) –
BC:
Right.
TS:
Okay, as if we owned it as developable property. They’re saying out of this 1,000 acres,
800 of it is developable. And I’m saying, “Bullcrap.”
BC:
Yeah.
TS:
It’s not developable! You’re not going to build on 32% slopes!
CP:
[Laughing]
TS:
And I haven’t been able to convince them (and I haven’t taken them to court) over the
fact that we really don’t want to give you $30,000 in taxes for something we don’t own.
BC:
No.
TS:
Now, it ought to be one or the other: we either ought to pay the state or we ought to pay
the county. One of the two, but not both, at least that’s my thinking. I’m sure I’d get some
arguments over that. [Phone ringing] Yeah, that’s my wife. Excuse me, please.
CP:
Sure.
[Stop and start recording]
CP:
Make sure it’s going there. Alright, we’re back. So we were just talking about your
relationship with government agencies and things that you have leases from and
everything, for the ski area. Just to kind of maybe get a base line here – we talked about
SITLA and the Forest Service; there’s some state land that you all lease from right now.
When you first started working at the ski resort was the land ownership different than it is
today?
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�TS:
Well the land ownership when we first started, either up at the Sinks or down at the
Beaver, was all Forest Service land. Either place it was. And then – hmm, I’d have to
look it up, but probably nine years ago it was turned over to SITLA, which is the School
of Institutional Trust Lands and they became the landlords. Their function is to develop
the land and make money for the school systems. So it’s just been the two different land
owners; both of them with very different missions – not different missions, but different
attitudes. One wants to make money and the other doesn’t care whether they make money
or not because they get a blood transfusion every July. But SITLA needs to make their
own money for themselves, the people that run it and also for the school systems. So that
in essence is the two different people that we do business with.
We do have to account to Cache County for all building permits, for taxes, for building
inspections, for food service inspections, for water testing, all of those types of things. So
we’re just like any other. We’re almost [like a] city in that we have to adhere to all the
rules and regulations almost that Logan City would have to adhere to. Safe drinking
water, fire prevention, water systems for fire – you name it. We do have ambulance
service up there, we do have ski patrol that has excellent facilities to take care of injured;
we do not have the ability to shock a patient in case of some heart problems from
afibrillation – we do not have that, but almost that good of communications with them.
As soon as the county gets this 800 megahertz [MHz] in, then we will have direct support
from the hospital to run some of this equipment that we do not have – oh, you get 100
people and somebody doesn’t know what they’re doing, but with the direct support from
the hospital and this 800 MHz comes in will be a good thing. It will also mean that the
Fire, Sheriff’s Department, Police Department can talk all the way through Logan
Canyon without the help of repeaters. They’ve tested it; they can talk right from Third
Dam to Garden City from the top of the Beaver. And this side is being developed; they’ll
build it next year which will be a good thing. There’s no site up there for cell phones;
there’s a little difficulty there going on between the state and federal government because
the state wants it on their land because they make a lot of money off of cell phone towers.
CP:
Um hum.
TS:
SITLA has given the state the right of way over the land to get to Beaver Mountain. But
also written in that right of way is the fact that they will not be permitted to put cell
phones on their tower.
CP:
Ah.
TS:
Right, wrong or indifferent, when you have the power you can do what the deuce you
want, you know?
CP:
Right.
TS:
If you have to ask permission you do what you are told usually. That’s the way it works.
So, it will be a good thing.
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�CP:
So, can you think of any government policies: national, local, state policies that have had
a major impact on your operations over the years?
TS:
The big thing was when they made our permits to the National Ski Area Association they
made the permits for forty years. But also within that system is the fee system; it’s locked
in for forty years. With so much based on income; as you make more money you pay
more. It’s based on a million income, two million, three, four, five up to a hundred
million dollars: which some ski areas would do; some of your large Colorado areas. And
it is all predicated on the dollar’s worth. When the dollars up it costs us a little more and
when the dollars down it costs us a little less. It is something that set in concrete so small
little resorts don’t have to go negotiate that with our Forest or the state or whoever owns
the land.
If you are on private land then that is something else. But we do pay income taxes on
every dollar that comes in like anybody else. We do pay sales tax. We do have a small
exemption on sales tax and that is for the lifts, our snow making equipment, our snow
grooming equipment. Now why did the state of Utah do that? Because Colorado has no
sales tax on lift tickets; so we compete directly with Colorado for skiers. (Not Beaver
Mountain so much but the Salt Lake resorts.) So the Utah Ski Association met with the
legislator a number of years ago and said “Hey look, we are at a disadvantage; we need
something to kind of offset this sales tax on lift tickets.” So they did give us the
exemption on the purchase of ski lifts, on the maintenance of them and on snow making
and on snow vehicles: over the ground vehicles. But that is the only break we get.
CP:
So how has the environmental movement changed what you do at the ski area? Have
there been any laws enacted or anything like that or environmental laws that have
changed how you [do things]?
TS:
Not that I am aware of. The state is not immune to the environmental movement. But
they are immune to . . . In other words if SITLA did not want to adhere to Cache County
rules they wouldn’t have to. They’d just tell the County to go jump in the lake. They may
end up in court. I’m not saying they wouldn’t do that. But, I remember a statement that
the director of SITLA [made]. He came up here I took him around and introduced him to
all the [Cache] County Commissioners and Lynn Lemon and all those people that’s
involved in that, our state representatives when this thing was taking place. And the lady
who was chairman of the County Commission asked this person “Well, would you adhere
to County zoning?” And he said “Yes, if it doesn’t interfere with what we want to do.”
What did he tell her? “Yeah, if you don’t bother us, we’ll go along with you.” You know.
CP:
Right.
TS:
So that’s between the state and the county. Our deal with the county, we have a master
plan: we work on a master plan. We have to submit drawings, we have to get building
permits. Blah de blah de blah; so nothing’s really changed.
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�CP:
So aside for that one forest ranger that you mentioned, your relationships has been pretty
good with the government?
TS:
They have, they have. You have to give and take. You can’t be overly demanding, but
you have to go in and – See the difference between the Beaver Mountain and the Forest
Service: we have to make money because we don’t get a blood transfusion every 12
months; we have to make our own money. And if they make life so miserable and so
expensive that we can’t make a profit and then we cease to exist. So they have to be (I
don’t know what word I want to use here) but they have to be sympathetic to our needs
because Beaver Mountain entertains more people on that 1,000 acres of land than the
Forest Service does – not on the whole Cache – but on the Cache/Blacksmith fork/Logan
Canyon and then up toward Richmond. We entertain more people than all the
campgrounds and that put together on this part of the Cache except maybe during the
deer hunt.
CP:
Whoa.
TS:
So as far as campers, trailers, hikers, bikers, horse riders; we entertain more than they do.
We entertained last year 87,000 people.
CP:
So what kind of – you know, 87,000 now – what kind of increase have you seen since
you started working at Beaver Mountain?
TS:
When I was a kid and we were up at the Sinks, lift tickets were $1 a day. And I can
remember when $39 was a big day.
CP:
Wow!
TS:
This book right here you saw me digging out?
CP:
Uh-huh?
TS:
That book, that book is one that my folks kept that tells what money income was at the
ski area. For example, (let me go back) – [flipping through pages of a book]
CP:
This is a ledger?
TS:
Yeah, this is a ledger.
CP:
With the date?
TS:
This is the date: on December 15, 1956 we took in $47.25 on the lift and $13.30 on the
shelter, in 1956.
CP:
Uh-huh. Yeah.
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�TS:
So how many people is that? I don’t know what lift tickets were at that time. This doesn’t
tell me. For the month of December we generated $1,128; in the food service we
generated $331.
CP:
That’s where the money is, or was then.
TS:
Yeah! I mean, you know. And here it says it started a lift December 19, 1954. December
19 they did $41.25 on the lift and $12.80 on food service. The month of December we did
$175.50 on the lifts. That’s not very much money!
CP:
No, no. Especially now, with passes being a few hundred dollars, so.
TS:
And this goes back – I talked to you about the Mount Logan Winter Carnival; Mount
Logan Ski Club Carnival – here’s all the people that raced and the times. And a lot of
these people are still alive, like Jerry Wallace and Max Sears, John Croft – these are
people that are my age. Eldon Larsen’s dead, but I mean that doesn’t mean anything to
you, but my dad kept records of everything.
CP:
Yeah. So what years, what time periods does that book cover there?
TS:
[Looking in the book] March 10, 1946. And here’s the cross country, the snow sculpture I
talked to you about snow sculpturing.
CP:
Uh-huh.
TS:
American Vets Rotary Club Mountain something, somebody – I can’t remember. (Some
of the book’s had water spilled on it.) But this book here, this little one, gives all the
times that our people worked. This one is not so old here; who worked, how many hours
and what their pay was. It’s kind of fun to dig back in that when we paid people $2.20
and hour.
CP:
Right, right.
TS:
You know, kids in high school.
CP:
So how have people’s demands changed? Skiers’ demands changed over the decades?
TS:
Well.
CP:
I’m sure what skiers expect from Beaver Mountain is much different than something they
might expect somewhere in Park City, or –
TS:
Right, right. It depends. Skiers today want lifts that run good, lifts that are comfortable;
they would like high speed lifts. Beaver Mountain can’t afford high speed lifts for a
couple of reasons: first of all the expense in buying them; and second of all, the expense
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�in hiring the qualified people to run the electrical system in them. See you would need –
on high speed lifts – you have to hire EEs (Electrical Engineers).
CP:
Really?
TS:
What would you have to pay an Electrical Engineer? $50, $60, $70,000 a year? Psh.
Maybe $80 maybe $90? That’s a lot of money!
CP:
Right.
TS:
Where we can get guys with the lifts we have now, we can hire them for 35-$40,000.
CP:
Um-hmm.
TS:
But the public does want the faster lifts; they want better groomed ski runs (which we
have the ability to do); they want good food, fast; they want a place to lounge (which you
can’t always supply – you get 1,000 people, you’re lodge holds 300 you know,
somebody’s going to have to leave) that’s a problem for us. We do not have the problems
with our clientele that the Salt Lake resorts do. Why? Most of our skiers are local. 85% of
their skiers are out of state, probably people that make a little more money who seem to
be more demanding. Now somebody don’t misunderstand what I just said, “seem to be.”
You can talk to the guys and gals that work at Alta on the lifts and they’re very happy
when spring comes because they’re tired of putting up with people who are demanding.
CP:
Right.
TS:
The Deer Valley will tell you the same thing; Park City will tell you the same thing. We
have a totally different – not totally – but pretty much different clientele than they have.
So a ski area ought to be a fun place to work, because whomever’s there is having fun;
they want to have fun. They’re there for enjoyment. Maybe they only take one ride and
go out and tailgate the rest of the day.
CP:
Yeah.
TS:
But that’s their entertainment! That’s what they do! Who says that because you buy a lift
ticket that you’ve got to make 15 runs a day? It’s an activity, it’s a sport, it’s a recreation,
it’s a happening.
CP:
Yeah, yeah.
TS:
And we’re seeing more and more of that all the time. We’re selling, oh 4 or 5,000 season
passes. Do you think them people are going to come up there everyday and beat their
head against the wall and run, run, run? No. They’re there for the experience; they’re
there to have fun; they’re there to socialize.
CP:
Right.
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�TS:
That’s good. That’s the way it should be; that’s the way it should be. Sure we have young
people that come up there (and older ones) that they got to get as many runs as they can
get because they spent $38 for a lift ticket and “by God, I’m going to get my money!”
Fine, fine. You can ski just as dang hard as you want. It doesn’t bother me. If you want to
go out and tailgate on your parking lot and fix whatever you fix – fine with me! Just don’t
leave your mess! [Laughing]
CP:
So then back in the ‘40s, you’re saying that basically the people just wanted a way to get
up the mountain and –
TS:
Okay. Back in the ‘40s we had a different ski area than we got today.
CP:
Right.
TS:
Back in the ‘40s you had the outdoor, mountaineering-type person – that was rugged (I
don’t like that word), but the rugged type individual. Today what have we got? The sick,
the lame and the lazy!
[Laughing]
Included with these others.
CP:
Right.
TS:
Who would’ve ever thought back in 1940 that you would have had adaptive scheme for
somebody that didn’t have his legs.
CP:
Mm-hmm.
TS:
Or somebody that didn’t have any arms; or somebody that couldn’t stand up that had to
be in a wheelchair. Who would’ve ever thought of that in 1940? We’ve got them
everyday up at the Beaver!
CP:
Uh-huh.
TS:
Thank the good Lord there’s people that are willing to do that for those people.
CP:
Uh-huh.
TS:
We, at Beaver, try to make life easy for them. We donate lift tickets to those people. And
here again, what I just said, the sick, the lame and the lazy. And I don’t mean that
derogatory, but that’s how it’s changed! We don’t just have a fur coat that we pull on and
go skiing, we got underwear and we got clothing that would keep you warm at 40 below!
CP:
Right.
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�TS:
And doesn’t have to be six inches thick like the old suits we used to wear. And the big
awkward shoes and four layers of socks! Now we wear one layer of thin socks and keep
warmer than the days when we wore six pair of socks!
CP:
Yeah?
TS:
So things have changed. Our equipment has gotten better; the lift has gotten better, the
food service has gotten better, the lodging has gotten better. Not just at Beaver Mountain,
at ALL resorts.
CP:
So have you ever tried to actively draw any of the crowd from Salt Lake City?
TS:
No.
CP:
Never tried? Never had any desire.
TS:
Well, okay. We do a little of it. But why should I solicit you if I don’t have a place for
you to stay?
CP:
Right, right. I mean you’ve got your niche, so.
TS:
Yeah, we’ve got a niche!
CP:
Right.
TS:
We think that if we ever get Bear Lake organized – have you been to Bear Lake lately?
CP:
I have!
TS:
Have you been there this winter?
CP:
I haven’t been this winter. Last time I went was – well, actually last time I went was this
summer.
TS:
Okay, there was a few food places open, a few places to go eat weren’t there?
CP:
Uh-huh.
TS:
A couple of service stations, weren’t there?
CP:
Yeah.
TS:
Do you know what you’d find if you went over there now?
CP:
What’s that?
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�TS:
You’d find three food services open – one of them’s just Thursday, Friday, Saturday; the
other one’s open seven days a week and the other one’s open five days a week. Is there a
grocery store? Well, not as big as this office we’re in.
[Laughing]
See. You got a place to go to a movie?
CP:
Uh-huh,
TS:
Do have a place to go bowling?
CP:
No, none of that.
TS:
Have you got a bar to go in? What have you got? Nothing. So would you want to take a
vacation and go and stay at Bear Lake with nothing to do after seven o’clock at night?
Probably not. So why should I solicit you to come to a place that I don’t have a place for
you.
CP:
Right.
TS:
Now, let’s be honest. I think there’s people out there that we could solicit and tell them
honestly what we are that would come and stay at a hotel/motel in Logan, and travel the
30 miles to the resort. Why? Mon-ey! They can stay down there for 40, 50, $60 –
whatever it is – they can ski for $40.
CP:
Um-hmm.
TS:
That’s a damn cheap ski trip.
CP:
A good deal.
TS:
It is! But you have to be willing to relinquish the assets that are at Deer Valley or Park
City.
CP:
Right.
TS:
You have to say, “Well they’re not of value to me.” I don’t have them, I don’t have any
money to pay for them either.
CP:
So has anyone in your business actively tried to encourage development of Bear Lake at
all, or is that kind of outside your –
TS:
I think they need a large convention center over there; they need a decent grocery store
over there. They need some entertainment over there. But what I can understand, that of
the people that own homes in Bear Lake, Garden City, all that area – that maybe 5% of
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�them use them year-round, and the other 95 are used for a few weeks out of the year
when Bear Lake is handy or if they came from the Wasatch Front, come up here and take
over the Christmas Holidays. We do get quite a few people from the Wasatch Front over
Christmas because they own places over there.
But for us to go out and solicit large groups of people to come to Beaver, it might work
once, but you’d never get them back. You’d never get them back because we are not that
kind of a ski area. We’re that kind of a ski area, but we’re not that kind of a facility ski
area (if that makes sense to you).
CP:
Yeah.
TS:
People say “Well look at all these people that go to Park City!” I said “My Lord! Look at
Park City! It’s a mile long with stores on every side: hotels, motels, bars, eating food, rent
skis, buys skis, buy a fur coat, buy a diamond ring, what do you want?!”
CP:
[Laughing] And they got a airport, you know, not very far away, so.
TS:
Yeah! See, so that what I think most ski vacationers want. Not all, not all.
CP:
Convenience. Yeah.
TS:
Convenience! I was in Ketchikan five years ago. And at Ketchikan these –
CP:
Alaska?
TS:
Alaska. Ketchikan, Alaska. Where these ships come in from these people that are on
these cruises; cruise ships come in there. There were two cruise ships come in there that
would hold roughly 4,800 people a piece. They both pulled up to the dock; long as a
football field; four stories high – I don’t know how big. And we’d sit in there waiting for
an airplane out of there, we had a day to loiter. And the town there at Ketchikan is about
four blocks long, (the whole thing it’s a lot longer than that). Those tours were totally full
of those people coming to buy stuff to take home. You think those locals didn’t know it?
You could walk there at 10 o’clock and there would’ve been nobody in the store, but at
11 it would have been full of people taking your money and people shopping. And they
would blow the whistle and all those people would leave and they’d go back on the boat
and it was a ghost town again. So people will spend the money if you’ve got a place for
them to spend it. And you don’t have that at Bear Lake. Now, summer pretty good;
winter, not so good.
CP:
Well I just wanted to go back and ask you one more question about an environmental
policy that’s come up in recent years, and just was wondering if it affected your business
at all. Just the debate over motorized versus non-motorized transportation: snowmobiles –
TS:
It hasn’t got onto to us because we so far have been able to keep the snowmobilers out of
there in the winter: because skiers and snowmobilers collide.
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�CP:
Um-hmm.
TS:
If they go up there on the mountain and they dig a deep hole and some skier falls in it,
hurts himself, who’s responsible? I don’t know where that guy is that left it with a
snowmobile. Those are things that we get concerned about when we groom, that we don’t
leave bad places for you to drop a ski or a board in and get hurt. Those are things that we
try to avoid. No, we have stayed out of that fight between the cross-country skier and the
snowmobiler. No, it hasn’t affected us because we’re a different – no, we don’t permit
them to park in our parking lot; we need it for our people. There’s a parking lot down
there, go use that and if it’s not big enough, don’t bother me go to the state. That’s their
concern, not mine.
CP:
Right.
TS:
See, what happened with the environmental movement – when we first started to develop
in the ski area in 1977. We had to do a big master plan: that was it. (Fact it was before it.)
So what we did, we hired some people to make all the lines and the circles, and write the
write-ups. And we had two meetings and we invited all the politicians, we invited all the
environmental community, of course the Forest Service, ski groups, anybody else. And
we met at the ski area. We had a few hundred people show up and we had about eight
tables. And we had a chairman at each table: he talked about power, or he talked about
whatever it was – cutting trees, or putting up ski lifts, or parking lots, or whatever. And
so all of these environmental groups, they came and they got their input, they got their
input to what they thought ought to happen. And those inputs were considered and then
we wrote up the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) and those things were put in
there weighed against something else. You know what? We never had one complaint
from the environmental community because they were invited to have their say. Now if
we would’ve done that without including them, they would’ve found reasons to block it
or get our master plan. But because they were involved, they had input into it, they were
happy with that. So, we’ve done a couple of things right.
CP:
Right, right. I just wanted to ask another thing about how the ski area has changed over
the years. How has it changed in terms of summer use?
TS:
Okay, years ago – of course when we were in the Sinks, we had nothing. We come into
Beaver in ’47, we had nothing. Then about 12-15 years ago we decided to try summer
activities. And so we planted three semi loads of grass out around the deck at the lodge so
that it looked nice. We cleaned up all the brush and the rocks, we cleaned all that up. I got
pictures to show you what it looked like, the devil. And so then we put the RV hookups;
put in 15 of those. And slowly we started renting them. So now 15 on the weekends, 16 is
not enough. So we put people on what we called the “upper side” and they can run a cord
and get power; they don’t have sewer, they don’t have water. And then we have tent sites;
six tent sites. Some of them one tent, two tents; some of them 7, 8, 9, 10 tents. We have
permanent pitch tents. We have four, ten-man tents that are permanently pitched that you
can rent for whatever you want. And you have water there, but no power, no sewer. But
we do have toilets, temporary toilets. Then we have the yurt, we rent the yurt out. That’s
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�rented out a lot in the summer. The day lodge, we rent the day lodge out. So we’ve gone
from doing nothing, to finding everything we’ve got at the resort where we can put a tent,
where we can put an RV spot. Now we can build some more RVs in the upper parking
lot, we can do that and we will do that. But we’re looking for a little more demand
because you understand in economics if you build and they don’t come, you still get to
pay for it.
CP:
That’s right.
TS:
But when there’s enough demand and you build and you know they’re going to come,
then you’re fine. So maybe our financial philosophy is different than the others: we don’t
like to borrow money. We don’t borrow money. Beaver Mountain has not borrowed
money since 10, 11 years ago when my wife and I bought my brothers and sisters out, we
didn’t have the money so we had to borrow it. Since then we’ve been able to do whatever
we’ve done, on our own money. And that’s good because we do not build, we do not
spend before we’re sure of our return. That’s the way it works. That’s the way it should
work! It’s worked for us.
CP:
So then, just to kind of sum up everything we’ve talked about – what do you feel is the
future of Beaver Mountain? What do you think will happen after, when you pass it on to
someone else?
TS:
Well, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but what I hope happens – two of our kids
and their significant others are in the business with us. Our son Travis is around 50-ish;
Jeff [son-in-law] is around 57, 58. Travis doesn’t have any boys; Jeff’s got two boys. At
the present time they’re not very interested in the business. Will they become interested?
Will the girls take it over and run it, do the man’s work? I don’t know, I don’t know. I
would like to see it stay in the family; I’m sure my folks would, you know? What
happens with development down below? Are they going to find an opportunity there to
sell it and walk away from it and make a lot of money? Or will they cherish it like we
have and say, “No, I don’t need the money, I don’t need the money”?
I think the ski area will grow more. I think there will be a couple more lifts put in; there’s
going to be some lodge additions, those types of things. We know that there’s going to be
more food service put in up towards the other side of the ski patrol building. There’s
going to be some buildings put in over at Marge’s Triple for food service and for
restrooms; that’s going to happen. So I see the ski area staying together, unless, as we
talked earlier, that the state finds a buyer for the whole thing and the only way he’ll buy it
is if the ski area’s included and they find a way to boot us out of there.
So that’s my hope. Now are you the one that asked about a mission statement?
CP:
No.
TS:
Oh, I got another meeting at 12:15 or something with somebody else on similar stuff.
They want to talk about bicycles and summer bicycle rides and where’s your mission
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�statement? Where are you headed? Well, I think mission statements are for a little bigger
company than we are. I think if you sat Jeff in that corner and Travis and the rest of them
in these other corners, you went around and asked them, “What do you think is going to
happen to Beaver?” I think almost without exception you would get the same answer,
because we’re a small company and we have meetings and get-togethers all the time and
discuss where we’re going, so. Anyway, we’ll see what he wants to know.
CP:
Right. So you think it will stay –
TS:
A “Ma and Pa”?
CP:
Yeah a “Ma and Pa” that caters to a local crowd?
TS:
I think so.
CP:
Think so.
TS:
They say Logan is going to double in the next 20 years. Maybe, maybe. We do have
room up there to build more day lodges and that if we need. We hope to build one now,
we got problems with the ski shop, we got problems with the ski school, we got problems
in food service. We need more room. We need more locker space, if you want to rent a
locker. Our lockers are totally booked, and they have been. People they keep them and if
they decide they’re not going to stay, they turn it over to somebody else.
CP:
Do you think that the warmer climate is going to affect the way that your business is run?
TS:
I read an article here awhile ago that scared me to death because they predicted that by
2038 it would not snow – and that’s the last year of our permit with the state. How
expensive would that be? Yeah, I’m concerned over the climate. But the thing that
bothers me is Congress or whoever, the Environmental Protection Agency, is not willing
to let business do things that we hold down the greenhouse gases. They’re still running
their coal-fired generating plants, when they could put nuclear in, that puts out one-tenth
the emission.
CP:
Right.
TS:
And probably safer, if the truth was known. They said we would have to have two
Chernobyls a week to be any more than dangerous than the coal-fired plants. Do you
think we’re going to have two of them a week? I don’t think so. Three mile island? I
don’t think so. Now, they’re talking about the down-winders. Yeah, that was probably a
mistake. No, I don’t know. I think sometimes people do these things and say these things
to try and get some notoriety. I wish they had a little more technical data to tell us about
before they opened their yip. You know? Everybody wants to be up here; everybody
wants to be the knowledgeable guy or gal and I think sometimes the stuff they throw at us
is total bullcrap. But it is a concern because we do not have the snow now that we had
when I was a kid. We do not have that, I know that. I know that.
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�CP:
What kinds of measurements do you remember?
TS:
Well, that’s been so long ago. I can remember years of 120 inches of collected snow. We
can get 350-400 inches of snowfall, but it settles down;120-140. But now, if we get 80 or
90 it’s pretty good.
CP:
Right.
TS:
It’s pretty darn good. I can’t remember what last year’s was, I’d have to – let me write
that down in the book that I don’t have here.
CP:
It was pretty good last year.
TS:
Oh the skiing was good, yeah! It was slow coming. We didn’t open until the 22nd of
December!
CP:
Right.
TS:
I remember one year, ’77 or ’79 we opened the 23rd of February and closed the 15th of
March. That wasn’t too prosperous; we didn’t make too much money that year.
CP:
Um-hmm, right. So you save your money during the good years for when you have lean
years?
TS:
Well some people save for a sunshiny day and we save for a rainy day.
CP:
Yeah?
TS:
But you know, it’s been good to us. And so I’ve been wise with our money, we’ve tried
not to overbuy; we’ve tried not to over-speculate. Yeah, we’ve made mistakes; will we
make more? Oh yeah, I’m sure we will. If we do anything we will, if we do anything
we’ll make mistakes. It will be interesting to see what happens in the – wish I could look
back on this in 10 years and remember what we talked about. But I think the ski area will
continue to grow, as long as we have winter. As long as we market it right and treat our
people right – and that’s part of marketing – and provide a fair service for a fair price.
That’s what it’s all about. If you didn’t like hotdogs you got a Joe’s, you wouldn’t go
you’d go somewhere else won’t you?
CP:
That’s right.
TS:
Yeah, that’s right. And our transportation any more, yeah it’s kind of expensive, but it’s
not very far to Powder Mountain or Snowbasin, or Wolf Mountain, or you get a little
further down into Salt Lake. But it doesn’t seem like it bothers people to drive that far
anymore.
CP:
Yeah, well is there anything that you’d like to add?
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�TS:
No, I’ve probably said more than I got knowledge to say. But if you have any questions –
why, the phone’s here. Don’t be afraid to call.
CP:
Sure.
TS:
Don’t be afraid to call. And I’m sure I’ve missed a lot of stuff, but you know, you can’t
live a lifetime in two hours.
CP:
Right, right. Well, it was good to talk to you.
TS:
It was good to talk to you and good luck to you with what –
[Stop recording]
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�
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/337">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/337</a>
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Title
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Ted Seeholzer interview, 19 November 2008, and transcription
Description
An account of the resource
Ted Seeholzer is the owner of the Beaver Mountain ski area in Logan Canyon and talks about the history of Beaver Mountain (which has been owned by his family since its inception), and his varying roles with the ski resort – beginning in childhood. He also discusses his interactions and relationship with the Forest Service and School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) over the years.
Creator
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Seeholzer, Ted, 1932-
Contributor
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Cole, Bradford R.
Pumphrey, Clinton R., 1984-
Subject
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Seeholzer, Ted, 1932---Interviews
Seeholzer, Ted, 1932---Family
Seeholzer, Ted, 1932---Career in the Ski Industry
Beaver Mountain Ski Resort (Logan Canyon, Utah)--History
Beaver Mountain (Utah)
Fishing--Utah--Logan River
Hunting--Cache Valley (Utah and Idaho)
Shupe, Don
Skis and skiing--Utah--Logan Canyon--History
Ski resorts--Utah--Logan Canyon--History
Seeholzer, Harold
Seeholzer, Luella
Sinks (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Utah State University. Forestry Field Station Camp
Roads--Utah--Logan Canyon
Roads--Snow and ice control--Utah--Logan Canyon
Roads--Widening--Utah--Logan Canyon--Citizen participation
Skis and skiing--Utah--Beaver Mountain
Snowboarding--Utah--Beaver Mountain
Utah. School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration
Cache National Forest (Utah and Idaho)
United States. Forest Service
Land use--Utah--Logan Canyon
Winter festivals--Utah--Logan Canyon--Anecdotes
Skis and skiing--Utah
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Oral history
Interviews
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Logan Canyon (Utah)
Beaver Mountain (Utah)
Sinks (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Bear Lake Valley (Utah and Idaho)
Mount Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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1930-1939
1940-1949
1950-1959
1960-1969
1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999
20th century
2000-2009
21st century
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eng
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 4 Fd. 5
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Inventory for the Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection can be found at: <a href="http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php">http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php</a>
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of the USU Fife Folklore Archives Curator, phone (435) 797-3493
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Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection
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FolkColl42bx4fd5TedSeeholzer
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19 November 2008
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2008-11-19
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Logan Canyon Reflections
-
http://highway89.org/files/original/1853497373d1d4843e9aa136dab68917.mp3
27b65a76fabe9258b3dc42c7ce924cb2
http://highway89.org/files/original/618db0fe3620b2b683c89edb9c9d64ff.pdf
4f9cc6b888007ed303d7aee78e8747da
PDF Text
Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Ted Kindred
Place of Interview: His home in Hyrum, Utah
Date of Interview: 13 August 2008
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Darren Edwards
Darren Edwards
Recording Equipment:
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Marantz PMD660 Digital Recorder
Express Scribe Transcription Software
Glenda Nesbit
Elaine Thatcher, January 2009; Randy Williams
(1/13/2011 & 7/13/2011)
Brief Description of Contents: Mr. Kindred talks living in Logan Canyon at Beirdneau,
his work with Thiokol as an engineer, his family activities up Logan Canyon, and his
local history efforts.
Reference:
DE: Darren Edwards (Interviewer; USU graduate student)
TK: Ted Kindred
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and
stops in conversations are not included in transcript. All additions to transcript are noted
with brackets. The interview is broken into five-minute tracks, which are noted in the
transcript.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Disk 1, Track 1]
DE:
This is Darren Edwards. I’m here with Ted Kindred at his home in Hyrum, Utah,
for the oral history of Logan Canyon Project. So what’s your full name?
TK:
What?
DE:
Your full name.
TK:
Theodore J. Kindred.
DE:
And when and where were you born?
TK:
Kansas City, Missouri, 1918.
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�DE:
So how did you get from Kansas City to Logan?
TK:
Oh, I was out here with Thiokol when they first started. I was a management
consultant. And, I don’t know. When they first called me to come out here I asked
them where it was at and they said Promontory. I said “You’ve got to be kidding.”
I said, “There’s nothing out there but sagebrush.” And they said, “No we’re
building a big plant out here.” So I came out and I stayed. Been here ever since,
this is home.
DE:
You decided you liked the sagebrush.
TK:
Oh, I love it here. I didn’t want to stay on the other side of the mountains [Box
Elder County]. So I wanted to come over here. And now it’s getting too crowded.
DE:
So what’s your earliest memory of Logan Canyon?
TK:
The very earliest is at the mouth of the canyon. It was a two-lane road at that time.
And the trees made a tunnel over the canyon there at the mouth. And you drove
that way almost to Malibu and Guinavah in that. Of course then when they
decided to widen it all the trees came out. No more up there. But, we used to go
camping up there and then later up at St. Anne’s. I used to go up there.
Monsignor Stock [of the Catholic Church] looked after it [St. Anne’s Retreat
when it was] left to them. And he only had a small parish here, and I was one of
the few in that. But anyhow he was trying to look after it, and so I sort of took
over half of it to look after. And oh, did a lot of repairs and things up there. And
then there used to be a tremendous amount of vandalism done up there because,
there are all kinds of stories you’ve probably heard and that. But it was basically
used as a, we [Catholic Church] called it retreat. But it was a vacation place for
the Holy Cross Hospital [in Salt Lake City] and the Benedictine Hospital in
Ogden, for them to come up and spend a week or two. But I don’t know. After
winter when it was closed up, they [vandals] used to break in and the furniture
was getting torn up and burned in the big fireplace and stuff. And I don’t know,
maybe you’d like some background of that St. Anne’s.
DE:
St. Anne’s is the Catholic retreat just up Logan Canyon? Yeah. Background
would be great.
TK:
Well some of the background: That land originally belonged to the Hatch family.
And they gave it to the Forest Service for lifetime lease on it. They kept it forever.
But Boyd Hatch took over and built, oh, a nice place up there. And I don’t know I
don’t believe a whole lot’s known here about him other than the Hatch Room up
to the University in the Library. That was donated by them. But he had a partner
at the Atlas Corporation: Floyd [Bostwick] Odlum. And he and Floyd, I’ve
always said, were the first conglomerate people. They had the RKO Studios and
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�Bell & Howell Camera, United Fruit, Bonwit Teller department stores: a whole
group of things.
But they would bring people in [to the St. Anne’s Retreat, then called Pine Glenn
Cove or Hatch's Camp or Forest Hills. It was placed on the national Register of
Historic Places on 28 December 2006]. They had a large closed-in porch,
screened in. And they’d fly people in from New York and Los Angeles, friends.
They had barbeques down by the river. And then on that porch they’d have big
name orchestras out of the, like RKO Studios. Bring them in for dances here and
things.
But [Track 2] anyhow, Boyd was going to build a Tudor mansion in Providence
up on the, up where Edgewood Farms is there. And he had a heart attack and died.
So all they ever got done was the foundation. [The furnishings for the library for
this mansion were donated to Utah State University and are now housed in the
Hatch Room in the Libraries’ Special Collection & Archives.] But then, they
Hatch and Odlum were both married to sisters: the McQuarrie sisters.
[Speaking of St. Anne’s Retreat]: Boyd died. Mary Anne [his wife] gave the
lower Hatch part to Monsignor Stock for the church. And later Hortense
[McQuarrie] Odlum she’d be up there by herself. She decided there’s no use her
coming up there anymore because Floyd had got a divorce and married Jackie
Cochran, a jet flying woman, jet flying ace. And so she called and told him
[Monsignor Stock] he could have hers, too. So they had the whole thing. But it
was a wonderful place. I used to clean out the pool up there, the swimming pool.
DE:
What were the names again of the people that donated that land?
TK:
Boyd Hatch and Floyd Odlum. It was actually their wives, Mary Anne and
Hortense.
DE:
Mary Anne and Hortense.
TK:
Hortense. Uh huh
DE:
How do you…Do you know how to spell that?
TK:
HORTENSE I think it is: Hortense. But there’s an interesting thing about that.
They were sisters – McQuarrie sisters. And their father died and Boyd’s [Hatch]
mother died—Eastman Hatch’s wife; the older one. And they met each other and
they got married. That made Boyd and his wife step-brother, step-sisters. It’s
interesting, it’s complicated.
But anyhow that covers pretty well what that was [history of St. Anne’s Retreat].
They finally, the nuns wouldn’t go up there anymore because there were too many
people trying to get in there. And they just didn’t want to be up there bothered at
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�night especially. So anyhow they had it for oh, the kids, needed places to go you
know, on that. And it didn’t last very long and they weren’t taking care of it. So
the church sold it; got out of it. But anyhow, aside from that the sisters still
wanted a place to go. And I had bought a place at Beirdneau; and I let them use
that place. They could come up there, small groups of them. It wasn’t big like St.
Anne’s. But they’d come up and I’d take vegetables and things up for them to
have while they were there.
DE:
Where was that again?
TK:
At Beirdneau.
DE:
OK; Beirdneau.
TK:
And I don’t know if you ever knew Tom Lyons? [He] taught English here at the
[Utah State] University for years.
DE:
Must have been before my time.
TK:
Well. Yeah, it was. He lived next door there [at Beirdneau]. They lived there the
year round. I don’t know what all you want me to tell about this. But I’ll tell you
an incident that I was involved in. They had three little boys. And we had six
children, some of them about the ages of those kids. Of course they were up there
by themselves so they would come over as soon as they heard the car come up to
our place, to have somebody to play with. Well, one time they came over and they
were turning handsprings and things. And they asked me if I could do that. And I
said, not any more. I said, “I practice yoga.” And they said, “Oh we’ve got an
Indian teaching us yoga comes up to the canyon.” I say, “Well, I tell you what,
next time I come up I’ll dress, everything on for that. But you got to be quiet
when I go.” Well I had a Chautauqua outfit. Years back those traveling operas and
things. It was a brocade and velvet outfit, you know; spangles all over it. I don’t
know all kinds of stuff. And I had a fez, and I had a pair of turned up boots, or
shoes, like the Turks. I had those on [Track 3] and so the kids caught on what I
was doing and they had all kinds of garbs to go with me up there. Well, when they
got up there, their lands were gone. I and told them there’s no use wasting that.
And in the front of our place there’s a bend going around in front of Malibu and
Guinavah, just a slight bend. Well, we . . . out on the end of that and it was open.
So the wild phlox was all in bloom. And we had our dog Gabby with us and we
picked phlox and put in his collar. And the kids had him, we’d go down to the
corner, a car came around we’d give them a peace sign and throw phlox out, you
know. [Chuckling] Two weeks later there was a rumor going around town that a
hippie family moved up Logan Canyon. But it was fun.
DE:
And you guys were the hippie family?
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�TK:
Yeah. But anyhow we used the place we had up there; we’d use it the year round.
We had a big fireplace in it and we had a wood/coal stove like that. Go up there in
the winter and build a fire in the stove and the fireplace, heat it up. The kids
would go snowshoeing or sliding up there. And have hot chocolate and things for
them to warm up with. But I don’t know. On up the canyon in the early days, we
used to cut Christmas trees up at the Sinks. And I’ll never forget that. Our two
oldest ones weren’t too old then, that we had. It was quite a lift, must be a half a
mile across the land there to get over to the trees. There was about three feet of
snow on the ground. I went over, I cut a tree and took, the two older ones wanted
to go with me. Well, by the time they got over there they were tired and they
wanted to be carried. And I had that Christmas tree and those two kids to get out
of there. Well, a friend at that time, Jim Cannon, worked for the Forestry. And he
arrived with a snowcat just as I was getting back off of that. And I said, “Why did
you have to wait until now to come up?” [Chuckling] He’d have got me out of
here. But that’s the only time I ever cut a tree up there. Never went back to get
another one.
DE:
Where was that again?
TK:
At the Sinks.
DE:
Okay.
TK:
That’s, you turn at Beaver to go up and you get about half way up the slope, it
was down in the Sinks. All down there, the low part.
DE:
So just past Beaver in those sinks there?
TK:
Yeah, uh hum. But you had to go clear across that to the trees. And that’s where
they issued permits to cut them. And we used to like to go up to Sunrise
Campground, up there and camp. We’d do that a lot. But it’s hard to get into any
of those places anymore. There’s everybody wanting in them.
DE:
Yeah. Now when you say “we” is that you and your family?
TK:
Yeah.
DE:
Your kids and wife?
TK:
Yeah. We did a lot of camping before, well even after we had our summer place
up there. We liked to go up the Wind Rivers. But anyhow back to Logan Canyon.
It had the most beautiful view [at Sunrise Campground] coming up, looking down
on the blue there at Bear Lake from the outpost there. But also I think a place they
forget about--there where they turn off to Temple Forks in Logan Canyon there’s
a privately owned place right there that looks like oh, a nice brick ranch house
built down there with a boat. There’s four acres or something in there. And there
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�had been a juniper place in there they called it Juniper Inn. You’d go up there and
eat and things. And it burned down. And it was a long time ago. Anyhow, I
inquired about that land up there because they have water rights, everything for it.
And at that time the forester, M.J. Roberts, he was looking for it too. Well, I
found the guy he was in the army over in Germany. [Track 4] And I contacted
him. He wanted $26,000 for that. I wished I bought it now.
DE:
So did M.J. buy it?
TK:
M.J. Roberts. That was the Chief Forester at that time. Everybody knows him,
he’s been around …
DE:
So did he end up buying the land?
TK:
No.
DE:
No.
TK:
I wouldn’t tell him who it was [that owned it]. [Chuckles] No, that’s private—
they built that ranch house up there on it. And they have water rights and
everything for it, on both sides of the river.
DE:
That’s a good setup.
TK:
Yeah. It was a good deal. But I don’t know. There’s been such a change in the
canyon itself because everybody’s in a hurry to get up to Beaver or Bear Lake in
the summer. And even Bear Lake, I remember that. Gad, when Ideal Beach was
the place to go, and we used that a lot too on weekends. But I don’t know if you
want to cover anything that was that far up.
DE:
That’s good; whatever you want to talk about with Bear Lake or Beaver or any of
that.
TK:
Well I can tell you a couple of good stories about it. My son was in the Civil Air
Patrol. And often in the summer they would sponsor members coming in from
other countries here, spend a week or two. And one year they had boys from
France. And we had them up the canyon; they used the cabin up there to stay in.
But I wanted to take them up to Paris, Idaho. [Chuckles] And we went up there
just to show them the town. As we came back the north beach was crowded, it
was on Sunday; people all over the beach. And they saw it. And they wanted to
know if we could go in there, turn in there. They wanted to, the minute we turned
in there they stripped clothes down, they were going swimming. And in those
jockey shorts, it, if they get wet, they may as well have been naked, you know.
Well that was long before we ever had them here. But then that’s what they had
on. Everybody was staring over at them. But they had a good time up there
swimming and all.
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�But then another time we had them at our place from Denmark. And everybody
said, “Oh we’ve got to have the return missionaries come up so they can,” I said,
“We don’t need that they speak English.” I said, “We don’t, but they speak more
than one language over there.” So anyhow, I don’t drink, but I thought they do
because the water’s bad there you know. And it’s gonna be hot. It was in July. So
I had a guy bring up a few cases of beer. And I had a little stream running down
by us that come out of the springs and I had them set them in there, cooling. So
when we got up there, why, they had, they had the interpreters with them. That is
the other people that was with them. And I asked them when they got up there if
they were thirsty. Oh yeah, they are. I said, well, over in that stream, I said there’s
cold drinks over there. Gad, [laughing] they did away with all of them. They were
all gone. But I don’t know this.
I made a few notes here… Oh another thing. We had a very dear friend who was
James Holy Eagle from Pine Ridge Reservation.
DE:
Now that was James
TK:
Holy Eagle
DE:
Holy Eagle
TK:
He used to come and spend summers here. And, oh, the kids they just worshiped
him. He was their grandfather as far as they were concerned. But he liked to
spend all the time he could up at our place there in the canyon. And he, what we
call dogwood, they call that red willow. And he’d cut off pieces of that and let it
kind of dry. Then he’d scrape the outer bark off and then the inner bark he’d
scrape and save. And when it dried he’d grind it all up and that’s what they call
kinnikinnick or tobacco. He’d mix a few little, real tobacco in with it. He had one
cigarette every night for visions up there out of that. But I thought that was
interesting to find out what we call dogwood they call red willow and made their
tobacco out of it. But [Track 5] he’d wander around up there. He loved being up
there and that. And the kids loved having him up there, too. I was a special guest
for the first Sun Dance they had that was legal back in ’72. And I was able to take
pictures of all that. There was a porcupine up there.
DE:
Now when you say the first Sun Dance what was that?
TK:
That’s a very holy dance for them. They put a pole or a tree in a circle and then
their, whoever they’re going to dance for, they make kind of a rope that they
weave that’s tied up to that. And then they’d pierce themselves here and put that
rope in it. And they’d dance and that until, four days, until they’d pull that out
finally. And for the, in order to have the whatever they’re dancing for was done.
But I don’t know so many things. There’s something. I’m getting off of…
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�DE:
You’re okay. You’ve mentioned your family a couple of times. What were their
names?
TK:
My family? [Wife was Patricia Kindred.] I had six children. I just lost my
daughter [Jennifer Treibe died 22 July 2008]. She lived right across the street; the
only one that still lives here. [She] had liver cancer. But anyhow, my oldest was
Timothy Kindred; then Rebecca Kindred and Kathleen Kindred and Patricia
Kindred, Jennifer Kindred and Lindy Kindred. Most of them had a, only one
graduated from over here at USU. But they all had an introduction over there.
Some stayed and some didn’t. My youngest one she’s, teaches graduate students
in Bloomington, Indiana, in theatre. In fact she was a designer for Shakespeare
Festival, not this year, but the two years before.
DE:
Just here in town?
TK:
Salt Lake. But anyhow, I was trying to think what else I could tell you about…
DE:
Well, really to get just a little more on you. During all this time what was your
profession, what did you do?
TK:
Well, I was a jack of all trades, I guess. Out here, for instance, I was hired as
consulting, management consulting person. And I traveled quite a lot. More for
corporate than I did from the Wasatch Division, because they had other interests
that they’d call me for. We had, oh; we had a place, for instance, in Georgia, St.
Mary’s, Georgia. And they were going to build a big booster down there. But it
didn’t work out. So they started building ammunition down there and there was an
explosion. So it killed several people. So they sent me down there to get it started
again. And then they were in the rug-backing business. And that wasn’t working.
So they sent me here, there and yonder. They had, oh they must have had 25
places that made ‘em. But it didn’t take long to find out what was the matter.
They weren’t organized. But I spent time down at Virginia – at Waynesboro. That
was for the one that I, the main one was on it. And I don’t know. Then I spent a
year in Chicago when the wind tunnel at Calahoma [?], the Air Force. Somebody
left a ladder in there and they turned it on and destroyed it. They had to rebuild it.
And part of it was in Chicago. They weren’t building it very fast so I spent a year
commuting in there. But that was mainly what I was sent. But since I’ve retired
it’s been oh, history, local. [Track 6]
In fact here I think it was I don’t know [19]’96 -’97, I belonged to the Mormon
History Association. And they established the Thomas Caine Award and I got that
the first year they issued it. That’s for a non-Mormon doing Mormon history.
DE:
Now what is the Thomas Caine Award for?
TK:
The Thomas Caine? I collected all this data, local data and maintained it. I don’t
know they’d send people from everywhere here for information; anywhere in the
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�Valley here practically. Elaine Thatcher, her father was a really good friend of
mine – Ted Thatcher. And his mother was a very dear friend of mine: Hannah
Thatcher; Frank Thatcher’s wife. But she was a 106 years old when she died. She
lived a good long life.
DE:
And Elaine told me (Elaine Thatcher is one of the people who is over the project)
she said that you were quite a historian; that you had done a good deal of local
history work.
TK:
Well, her grandmother was not Mormon, and her grandmother’s father John oh…
I’m pushing 90 and I have, I don’t get instant recall of names. What was his last
name? Anyhow he was director of music. He came from Wales. He was director
of music out here in Benson Ward for different wards out there. Went to church
there all the time; but never joined the church.1 And he was the first Postmaster
out there. And his, he had to make a name for it. Wasn’t Benson then; he called it
King. And I have postcards from there that were never used. King, Utah.
DE:
Before it was called Benson it was called King?
TK:
King. Uh hum. Yeah. But I don’t know. I was trying to just think of other things
that maybe…
DE:
Some of the things that we’re looking into are the land use policies. The way the
canyon has been used. What are some of your views on land use policies?
TK:
Well, they put a stop on issuing any permits for homes up there. And they would
like to get rid of all of them. But that’s going to be a hard thing to do. I know they
had a committee a number of years ago do a massive study on that. And there
were some 98,000 summer homes on government land [all over the country]. And
they recommended that Forestry sell that land to the people that owned the places
and get out of the business. Don’t do it anymore.
Well, poor old M.J. Roberts, he had to call a meeting on that, you know. And I
kept asking when he was going to get to that part. And finally he was getting
angry about me asking him. He didn’t want to get it. He said, “You couldn’t
afford to buy it.” He said, “We want $3,000 an acre.” I said, “I’ll give you a check
right now for it.” [Laughing]
But they never did do it. They never sold them. They still lease the land. And it’s
high now, but the lease is not as high as the areas put on taxes, things like that,
you know, and insurance for up there. And I don’t know the taxes have gone skyhigh. There was hardly any taxes on those places [in earlier times]. They never
1
Note from Elaine Thatcher: Hannah Mathews Thatcher was 105 when she died in 1990. Her father, John
Mathews, was choirmaster for St. Johns Episcopal Church in Logan. He would walk to Logan from Benson
to serve in this capacity. I don’t think he ever attended the LDS Church unless it was for a wedding or
funeral.
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�did anything for them. But now the county, I think, on just a little place up there,
be $600-$700 a year on it. And they used to let students live there the year-round.
But not anymore; they got to be out of there, they close it.
DE:
You mentioned earlier some of the ways that you’ve noticed the way people use
the canyon has changed. [Track 7] You said it used to be a lot slower, and now
everybody’s in a rush to get to Beaver or to Bear Lake. Can you talk a little bit
more about that? How the way people use the canyon has changed in your life.
TK:
Well, yes. It used to, you know, you drove slowly up there because it was a
narrow road. And you could enjoy a trip up there. You weren’t hanging on to the
steering wheel wondering who’s gonna hit you next, you know, or something. But
now it’s a speedway going up there. Well, it’s getting to be the same way going
from Logan to Preston since they widened that. That’s 60 miles an hour now and
they go 70-75-80 on it. But it used to be an enjoyable trip to go up there. But I
don’t know; I don’t like it now. I go up to the Emigration Canyon going from
Preston over. Because it’s a bad road there, it’s narrow yet. You can go through
there and really enjoy it, going through, enjoy the whole place. And then there’s
Ricks Springs up there. I don’t think it’s even open anymore.2
DE:
Ricks Springs?
TK:
Uh hum. Everybody’d always stop there and get a drink. But I guess it was
dangerous to pull off there now. Or maybe it didn’t have no parking there after
widening it. I don’t know.
DE:
So it seems like widening, the widening of the roads and the making of the speed
limits faster has changed things a lot.
TK:
Yeah. The whole bit. And they had to widen the bridges. Then there’s that one
bridge up used, you kind of worried about even crossing it when somebody’s
coming the other way, ‘cause it was just real narrow.
DE:
And where was this bridge at?
TK:
Oh it’s after you . . . it’s quite a ways up there. I’m trying to think what the, it’s
when you’re going up high and there’s a deep canyon all around there. In fact a
fellow pushed a car off with his wife in it up there.
DE:
When was this?
TK:
Oh, a long time ago. Yeah. I think he went to prison for it. Because that must be a
150 feet down.
2
Note from Elaine Thatcher: As of this writing (Dec. 18, 2008), Ricks Spring in Logan Canyon is still open
and has pull-out areas for cars, interpretive signage, and a boardwalk for people to walk on going up to the
pool.
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�DE:
Now was this back when the bridge was narrow?
TK:
Uh hum. Yep.
DE:
So in dealing with the land use and the policies governing land use, have you, did
you personally have any hand it those? In creating policies? Or was there ever
something that you lobbied for?
TK:
No. The things that you used to argue about. They came up one time, for instance,
at me. I kept the lawn nice, because we had small children. And you have snakes
up there, you know. We’d have a rattler every once in awhile out there go across.
But I kept in down and one of the rangers told me I shouldn’t do that I ought to let
the grass grow. And I said well I’m not going to do it. I didn’t, either, because I
didn’t want my kids running out there to play you know, and stepping on a rattler
and get bit; because you never knew for sure.
But that brings up something else, you know, that… The students used that the
year round. They’d stay there the year round. And there was a couple of them.
One of them still lives over here in Logan. But he was kind of a real
environmentalist. And in fact he was against the North Slope pipeline in Alaska
coming down. But after we had the shutdown on oil coming in here for a short
period a long time ago. Well, he went to Alaska and he did write ups on the
pipeline. And he made quite a lot of money doing them. And he came back here
and he opened his own business here. I often have thought of him. He made all
the money writing all these things, you know. But I think he was hurrying them
up to get oil in, too. But they’d [Track 8] park in my lower parking and it’d be
muddy and they’d made ruts in there. So I called them one day, the three of them
up there and I said, you guys bring your rakes over here and clean up the mess
you left on my parking. They says, like what? And I said, “You’re all
environmentalists,” and I said “Look what you did down here.” I said, “You made
these deep ruts.” [Chuckles] But those same guys, I get, they used to come up and
we’d have, I had a fire pit and we’d do pit barbeques up there.
That’s something else I did too. When they used to have the Western Writers
Conferences here, I always knew who was coming and I’d do a pit barbeque up at
our place for the ones who were going to take part in it. Not the audience, but the
ones that were, and I met all these people, and I’d always have their book so they
could sign them. But I don’t know. They’re wonderful people, you know. The
only one I didn’t like, well, I guess he was alright. But he was different, was
Edward Abby.
DE:
Edward Abby?
TK:
Yeah. He was kind of foul-mouthed. But he’d have a couple of drinks, and start
in. But I don’t know. Wallace Stegner, he was a wonderful person. He just, they
were over to the house here, he and his wife two different times to visit.
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�But also this, the same ones, the environmentalists that I was telling you about,
one winter we went up to Mammoth Springs in Yellowstone and stayed up there
with a project officer and then the next day went over to, oh, what’s the, oh, that’s
awful when you can’t recall right quick. Anyhow it’s Windows Flat in the valley.
And we went over there and snowshoed in to get pictures of wildlife in there. Oh,
it was a beautiful thing. But they were worried about me. I was the oldest one of
them and they were afraid I was going to fall. But I made it. And oh, shoot. But
anyhow, we had lots of experiences like that. I feel I’ve had a good life. You
know, getting involved in all these things.
DE:
Had a lot of activities and things go on.
TK:
Well, in the early days. Now this is something else I guess I could tell you about.
We were very active with the foreign students. And back in the early 60s up ‘til
early 70s they had several thousand here.
DE:
The foreign students?
TK:
Uh hum. And a lot of them were from Iran, Iraq, and places like that. Arabia,
Egypt. But the main ones that came was from South America. And places that
don’t like us like Venezuela. The ones that turned on us, you know. But we had
lots of students. They used to call this house the Latin American Embassy. But
anyway some students were leaving to go home then they would bring students
coming in over and introduce them. So it was constant turnover coming in. But
we’d take them up the canyon. I don’t know, have barbeque and stuff up there.
And entertain them. But I don’t know. Do you have more things there that you
could . . .?
DE:
A couple of things that I would like a little, if you can elaborate a little bit more
on, with the writers project; when the writers came in. Can you tell us a little bit
more about that?
TK:
Well, yes, it was a fabulous thing to me. They had quite a large attendance for
that. And, of course, the big names of all of them that came in. I know our son’s
name was Timothy Shane. And Frank, [Track 9] I’m trying to think of his last
name just off hand. That wrote the movie, the story Shane. [A.B. Guthrie wrote
the screenplay for Shane.] He was here. And when he found out our son’s name
was Shane he wrote a whole page in the book and gave to him. About Shane and
all. But oh, Guthrie, and here a while back, I can’t get the names, I can’t recall
them real quick for you. But those, some of those people still come for other
occasions here.
Like when they have the Leonard Arrington lectures. Every once in awhile I’d go
and here’s an old face comes in. And there’s one from Yale, he was here a while
back and I went down to talk to him. We had a nice visit there for a while.
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�Because he had the old memories of having a pit barbeque. He’d never seen one
before. But it’s been a wonderful life here you know, and stuff.
DE:
Are there any ways you can think of that the writers project, and having those
writers come in and share that Logan Canyon, and experience Logan Canyon, that
affected the development of Logan Canyon? Or the land use of Logan Canyon?
TK:
Well, we used to use up all the parking spaces up there at Beirdneau when we had
these. But I think the people enjoyed them. Like Tom Lyons lived right there, he
was from the University. And I don’t know but Ken Brewer. Ken was a
participant in that. And then there was another one that died not long ago – Mark
Sorensen. [Omitted part of interview at this point.]
In fact there were other things they had, too. They used to have the
Lawman/Outlaw Group. And they had all the western stuff. It used to all be
published here. But they’d just last so long; it was almost like the Heritage Farm
out here. Most of that was up on the campus and they moved it all out there now.
But I was involved in that when they first started out there. The first manager was
from here, Sven Johnson [Johansen?]. But I think they’re doing a better thing out
of it now, over there.
DE:
That’s the Heritage … Was it the heritage ranch you’re talking about?
TK:
Farm
DE:
The Heritage Farm.
TK:
Yeah. Out there by Wellsville. Yeah. [Ronald V. Jensen Historical Farm]
DE:
What can you tell me about Austin Fife?
TK:
Austin Fife. He was a real good friend. He and his wife used to come over every
once in awhile. And they always had these wonderful stories.
There’s something that I never did see documented that over here in Wellsville
they had, one of the families that came in from the east brought slaves with them.
And when the slaves were released they took their name of Brad what, it will
come to me in a minute. Anyhow one of them was Pokey. And over here in Mt.
Sterling he squatted on a piece of land. And they had a quarry in there. And a lot
of the rock that went into these Wellsville homes [Track 10] came out of that
quarry. And they have the cemetery over there. For the centennial I got people out
of range science to come and clean that up, because there’s still a lot of people
buried there. And when I, they put something in the paper about it. And I said that
I was worried about two places there. Said I was wondering if there had been
slaves that were buried there. Because they had sunk in; and Wilma Hall over in
Wellsville, she’s the historian for there. She called me up and she says, “What do
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�you know that I don’t know?” [Chuckles] That was under their control then. I
said, “I don’t.” I said, “But they didn’t make tombstones for them when they
died.” I knew that. And I said, “I’m trying to also get more information on it.” But
I said, “Most of them migrated to Salt Lake.” And I said “I have the phone
numbers of them.” But how do you call and ask “Are you black or are you
white?” To talk to them. So I said I haven’t done it. But I don’t know. There’s so
many things that they have up there.
Now Malibu, right across from where Malibu is the area called Malibu. There
used to be a large, oh, dance hall built in there. And later became a scout place.
And then finally they just tore it down, got it out of there. Then down where the
Stokes Center is. That was originally a scout place. And then the Legions had it
for a long time.
DE:
The who?
TK:
The American Legion.
DE:
American Legion.
TK:
Uh hum. And now, of course, it was kind of abandoned because the Legion was,
well, ‘cause they were dying off from World War I and II. That was the day. Not
going to be around too long.
DE:
Is there anything that you could tell me about Hardware Ranch?
TK:
Yeah. I love the Hardware Ranch up there. In fact, there’s a book on it called
Twenty Eight Years on the Anderson Ranch by Leon Anderson. And a number
of years ago when they had a young ranger up there, and they wanted to start
having an elk festival. So I called all over to find out who could give me
authorization to republish that book. And I found Leon’s son in Hawaii and he
gave me permission to publish a thousand of them. And we printed them for $3.00
apiece; we were selling them for $10 using the money for that up there to help
with that. And when I first came here the Legion in the wintertime had a trailer
that they’d park at the entrance up there and they sold hot chocolate and coffee
and hot dogs and hamburgers and stuff to people. Used to be a lot of people went
up there in the winter. And I don’t know that’s the way they raised funds for it.
But then the first year that they had this elk festival.
DE:
What festival was that?
TK:
Elk Festival
DE:
The Elk Festival
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�TK:
Yeah. Dan Christensen is the Superintendent up there. And he’s doing a lot of
new things. What’s his . . . Thad Box.
DE:
Thad Box
TK:
Yeah. He was the first speaker up there. I like him. He’s really a neat fellow. Even
at his house, the house he lives in there on Center Street. I had a call from Barbara
Howell one time, wanted to know if I’d come over and tell her about some light
fixtures that she had. And I went over and they were art deco style. And she was
showing them to me and wanted to know what they were worth. And I told her.
Well, then I was on the committee for places that we give awards to for
maintaining. [Track 11] And Thad’s house came up and we went down to take a
look at the house, and I looked at it and I said, “Oh, those fixtures, you got those
from Barbara Howell.” And Thad says, “You’re the culprit that told her what they
were worth.” [Laughing] But I get involved in a lot of stuff like that. I don’t
know.
But anyhow, I was afraid they were going to try to do away with Hardware
Ranch, maybe sell it or something. And so I’ve encouraged Dan to do everything
he can, you know. He’s doing a lot of new things up there now. And I know this
one time, the first year they had the festival later. They had an all day, oh, kits that
they got from Lowe’s and the Home Depot to make bird houses and things. And I
stacked up a whole bunch of bird seed. And the kids would put those together up
there for something to do, you know. And they began to draw a pretty good crowd
up there to that. And I loved driving up. But that’s another canyon where it’s all
privately owned up there now. Yeah, when I came here you could walk anywhere
you wanted to you know. It was privately owned then, but people didn’t, there
was just one place up there, the Adams Homestead.
DE:
The Adams Homestead?
TK:
Uh huh. It’s still there too. In fact, it’s still in the Adams family. He was the
principal here at the high school. And they homesteaded up there, and I think this
is the third generation now, has it up there. The house is still there and all. But it’s
a, I don’t know, it’s a—when I used to come over the summit up here and look
down I could tell every little town because there was just a block or two of lights.
Now the whole valley’s lit up. Everything, you know, just…
You know I gave, this is off the subject, but, I gave . . . after my wife passed away
I was going through things she had. And I had two years of newspapers bound
like they used in the newspaper office. And I thought they ought to be over where
somebody could use them, because the age of them and all. And I took them over
to Ann Butters and gave them to her.
DE:
Who’s Ann Butters? [USU Special Collections’ Western and Mormon Americana
Curator]
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�TK:
She was over Special Collections.
DE:
Okay.
TK:
At that time. Anyhow, she was amazed because they were from, there was a
Boston Record it was 1818 and 1819. And it was still very legible. No
deterioration on them. But they had all the stuff in there about slave ships coming
in, and missionaries going off from a hundred different churches. Everybody was
sparked with religion then. But then I don’t know, just other things I gave them. I
had, let’s see, Campbell. Yeah, Thomas Campbell and his wife they were the first
Presbyterian ministers up at Mendon. And it’s their wedding pictures, oh, that
high and that wide, you know. It was left here when they left. I don’t know if they
left in a hurry or what. And this house next door to me, it used to be the Methodist
Church here.
DE:
And now it’s a home.
TK:
Yep. I’m getting off the canyon for you.
DE:
I noticed when I was walking up to your house. You have a lovely house here.
You’ve got this great old wood burning stove behind you that we talked about
earlier.
TK:
Yeah. That came out of Park Valley [Utah, in Box Elder County].
DE:
Oh did it? Out of Park Valley?
TK:
Uh hum.
DE:
It’s a beautiful old wood burning stove.
TK:
It’s usable. I keep that wood out there. When I’m sitting here in the evenings, I
put a stick or two of wood in there and light it. And then it’s a [Track 12]
different warmth and that. And then the kids, I have two grandchildren who live
across the street. They’re 19 and 22. They like to go camping, so they come over
and swipe a few to take with them for fires when they’re up camping.
DE:
Well, I guess probably one of my last questions for you with talking about, you
know, you have this very strong connection with Logan Canyon, with the
outdoors and in working with the writer’s project, and, you know, you had some
great experiences with that. Was there any piece of literature, any piece of writing
that really affected your connection to the land?
TK:
A writing of it?
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�DE:
TK:
Uh hum. Well…
Well, like Old Ephraim. That story lives on and on. I can tell you a story about
that too. Scott Bushman, one of the Rangers…
DE:
Uh hum, Forest Rangers
TK:
Forest Rangers. He wanted to fix up for the centennial an exhibit there in the
rangers shop. And he wanted to get use of the Old Ephraim’s skull that they had
at the University [in Special Collections, on permanent loan from the
Smithsonian].
DE:
Uh huh.
TK:
This is bad. I told, I said, “Well, I’ll tell you what,” I said. “That really belongs to
the Smithsonian. But, I said, they let the University use it here. And I said you
call, I had the Director of Government Affairs for the Smithsonian, she’s a friend
of mine.” I told him, call her. And I said, “She’d give you permission.” He called
her and she said, “Old Ephraim’s skull. We’ve been trying to find out where it’s
at.” [Laughing] Anyhow, he told her who told her to call. And so she gave him
permission to use it. But that was funny you know that they were upset that they
didn’t know where it was. But that’s records I guess.
DE:
Now what’s the story behind the Old Ephraim.
[For information on Old Ephraim go to USU Special Collections digital collection
at http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/Ephraim]
TK:
Well, supposedly, this fellow was almost attacked, and he’d been watching for
him because he knew he was big. And he came in as a sheep herder type. And I
don’t know they give that lecture here all the time. They love to give that to scout
troops and all, you know, the ones that read it. But he was buried and was over
nine feet tall, on it. But, I don’t know, it gets overused maybe.
But I think of Yellowstone. I don’t like Yellowstone anymore, because, when I
used to go up there, you could stop, the bears never bothered you. They’d come
right up and you’d give them something, you know. I was more concerned about
moose those days than I was the bears; because the bears were smart. They could
get a handout. But now there’s more foreign people up there than there are United
States citizens. And, besides its speed [limits] changed, widened the highways.
And now around Old Faithful, you used to set up fairly close and now it’s all
gravel; a great big area that’s graveled.
DE:
Well, are there any last stories that come to mind that you’d like to share?
TK:
Well, I got lots of stories, but they’re not all about the canyon.
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�DE:
[Laughing] Well, we’ll narrow it down to any last stories about the canyon.
TK:
Yep. I don’t know. When they, when this American Heritage group were meeting
out at the farm out here for a long time. And I was involved in that. But then they
got to the point where, well, in four months I’ll be 90 years old. That’s getting
pretty awkward you know, to try to keep up with the younger people in this stuff.
And I drive, but I don’t like to drive at night. I’m just apprehensive. I don’t want
to cause an accident. But I was involved out there and I loved it. In fact I was
[Track 13] involved with the whole thing out there when it first started. I helped
to get it going. I used to furnish stuff for the June wedding; things that you never
see around there anymore. You know what bone dishes are?
DE:
Bone dishes? Uh uh.
TK:
Well there like a, they’re shaped, there’s some over there in that thing. But, they
sit beside your plate. And when you ate chicken you put the bones over there.
DE:
So it’s kind of like almost banana shaped dish that you would put the bones in.
TK:
Yeah. Well those and butter pads and knife rests. Two knobs with a thing. They
had a plate so the knife wouldn’t get on the tablecloth. Stuff like salt cellars with
little dips, for salt shakers and things like that. I’d take them out there and special
types of linens and things clear back then. But it’s getting to where it’s just too
much effort to do it anymore. I have Indian things though. I was telling you Holy
Eagle used to come here.
DE:
And what was Holy Eagle again?
TK:
James Holy Eagle. He’d spend a full summer and he’d have his mail sent here.
And he’d go up to the post office every afternoon to get the mail. The kids would
go with him. Everybody in town knew him, him being here all summer. But
they’d stop at the, had a drug store up there then, on the way back and get a candy
bar or ice cream or something for each one of them. Well this one day it was
raining, the kids said it’s time to go get the mail. And he said, No we’ll wait till
2:00 and it will quit raining. Well, 2:00 came and it quit raining. So he went and
got the mail and came back and it started raining again. Well, they figured Holy
Eagle could do anything, anything at all. [Laughing]
But I don’t know, he went to school here one fall to the high school. And, well, it
was up at Sky View, before Mountain Crest was here. And they had him on the
stage for all the whole school and audience there in the auditorium. And he kept
going on and on and we had Indian kids in front of him and his big arms stretch
out and emphasizing everything. And it was so quiet in there and finally he was
going way past time. And I asked the principal, I said, you want me to stop him?
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�And he said, No, not on your life. He said, they’ve never been a piece where it’s
been this quiet. Let him keep right on.
DE:
Now do you remember was he Shoshone?
TK:
No, he was Sioux.
DE:
Sioux.
TK:
Hunkpapa-Minneconjou, a mixture. But he was a grandson of Sitting Bull.
DE:
Of Sitting Bull?
TK:
Yeah, very interesting. But I don’t know my daughter that passed away [Jennifer
Treibe]. She has an oil painting of him upstairs that she did. But I got lots of
pictures of him. He was mistaken a lot of times for the fellows in the movies. Has
long hair, white hair, chief. I had him down to the airport one time and this fellow
facing the other side from us. I told Jim, I said, you better smile a little bit that
fellow’s going to take your picture. He was getting the camera way down there.
He was just gonna see it. After he took it I asked him, I said, “You wanna know
who he is?” He said, “Well, is he the one that’s in the movies?” And I said,
“Nope. It looks like him, but it’s not him.” But he was, he was in World War I
and he went to Parallel school in Pennsylvania when they sent the Indians out for,
but he was a wonderful person.
[Disk 2, Track 1]
DE:
Well, thank you very much.
TK:
Say what?
DE:
I said thank you very much. You’ve done a great job as a historian. Sounds like
you’ve done a lot of great work and lived a very wonderful, interesting life.
TK:
Well, I love this stuff. You know doing this. And, I don’t know, there’s times they
talk about maybe I ought to be in assisted living. And I said, No, I’m going to die
here, because everything that I love is right here.
DE:
You’ve got it all set up in the kitchen here.
TK:
Yep. And I’ve, I was in the throes of passing this stuff on to my daughter; because
she was my sidekick for this history and stuff. And we discovered she had liver
cancer. And so some of it’s over at her place and I’ve got boxes of stuff that I was
giving her. And I’m not sure what I’m going to do now with it. There was a
fellow here a while ago, Ray Anderson. He lives down at, just out of Cedar City.
And he grew up here in town. And typical, there was a big family. There were 13
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�children and they were poor. And they were kind of pushed around. But now he’s
writing stories about the town. And he comes to me for information. But there are
things, I don’t know if you want, if you’re interested in things that you won’t find
in a history book.
DE:
Oh sure.
TK:
Well, Hyrum had a dairy up at Hardware Ranch, in that area. In the early days it
was called United Order dairy: For butter, cheese and stuff. Well, I often
challenge people when they tell me Peter Maughan was the first settler here.
DE:
Peter Maughan?
TK:
Yeah. I say that’s not true. The first one here was Thomas Garr, when he drove
cattle up from Antelope Island: [LDS] Church cattle and their cattle into the
valley. And over in Millville they built the, there were three different ones. Each
one built a cabin over there. The other two left and went back, but he didn’t. He
stayed. And he never married, but he had an affair with a Shoshone. They call her
Susie. Now whether that’s the right one or not, nobody knows. Anyhow she had a
baby. And she left it with him. And he was known as Jack Garr: Indian Garr. And
he found out the church hadn’t filed on the land that the dairy was on. So he went
over and filed on it and made them move it. And that’s not in the history books.
They had to move it. And that became what is Anderson Ranch today, was
established by him. That’s where the church…
DE:
So Anderson Ranch was established by Garr.
TK:
Yeah. By Jack Garr
DE:
Jack Garr
TK:
And Jack would come in to Hyrum, he’d drive his wagon and horses in, you
know. And he’d proceed to get kind of drunk. And on the way back one time he
went to sleep and the horses got off to the side of the road and it turned over and it
killed him. And so there was a big lawsuit. There’s a schism in the Garr family
over this, that don’t believe that really Garr, you know Indian Garr. And the ones
that are. But Jack Garr’s grandson lives over in Millville and he’s an old fellow.
He’s well educated. His name is Jensen. Monroe Jensen. Nice old fellow. I go
over and visit with him every once in a while. But I’ve got the whole history of
the Garrs and the lawsuit and everything on it. But to me it’s interesting that its
history but they don’t want to document it: unwritten history.
So, and there’s a lot of that. There’s another one here, the reason I got interested
when I retired was [Track 2] I found photographs done by Hugo Peterson. And
he was born with one arm off at the elbow. But he was an artist and a, well, did
everything. Photographer. And anyhow, I was looking for pictures that he had
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�done: photos. And I got quite a few of them I found. I knew where he was born
over here, where he grew up. I called a fellow that lives in his house. And it was a
log house but it’s had additions to it and covered with sheeting now. Anyhow, I
asked who he bought the house from and he told me. He said, this fellow. And I
said, “Do you know how to get a hold of him? Oh, he’s an old man and he’s
dead. Well, I didn’t take that. Went to the Salt Lake phone book and I found this
Frank Boyd down there and I called him. And that was him. And he was a
grandson of Hugo Peterson. And he came up here. And I had a lot of information.
In fact I had their grandparents’ photos: big ones. And I just recently gave them to
his sister so they’d be in the family. But I don’t know; we became very good
friends over this. And I get a lot of data from them on it. But it’s just things I’ve
done.
In fact I can tell you the story of how I got the data on them. I had a fellow, there
was a Grover Christensen here in town. And I knew he had died and he had no
children. He had adopted a boy, the boy died before he did. And his wife had
died. And he married a May Nielson. And when May died, I wanted to find out
what she did with his documents and things. And they told me she gave them to a
woman across the street, a Mrs. Huron. So I went over to Mrs. Huron and asked
her if she had them and she said, “I have.” And she gave them to me. But she said,
“I wasn’t a relative. So I gave them to Mrs. Croshaw over in Brigham, a cousin.”
So I knew Mrs. Croshaw; So I went over to see her. And I said, “Do you have
those?” “Oh yes,” she says, “I’ve got all that stuff.” I said “Could I borrow some
to reproduce some of it.” And she goes and gets two great big cardboard boxes
and these two big pictures. And I said, “How much of that can I borrow?” She
said, “You can have the whole damn thing.” She said, “I didn’t like him.”
[Laughing] I waited for her to say something else. She said, “He’d come over here
and we had fruit farms.” Said, “He’d get cherries, he’d get apricots, he’d get
peaches.” And she said, “He’d never pay for them.” She said, he’d look me in the
eye and he’d say, “If you think you’re getting any of my money when I die, you
better think again.” And they were cousins.
But anyhow, here I have all that data, you know. And there’s a lot of stuff I’ve
never published, you know, on it. Because I’m telling things that maybe…
DE:
Is there any of the kind of unwritten history stuff about Logan Canyon that you
feel comfortable talking about?
TK:
Well, I don’t know whether there is or not. This fellow that just wrote the recent
book from National… well, teacher [referring to Michael Sweeney and his book
on Logan Canyon that was published by National Geographic: Last Unspoiled
Place: Exploring Utah's Logan Canyon.]
DE:
The journalism professor.
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�TK:
Yep. He was going to come over and talk to me about St. Anne’s. But then I think
he decided there was too much controversy over it. And he didn’t want to get that
in his book. But I have his book here. But I don’t know. I don’t know. Are you
LDS?
DE:
Uh, yeah.
TK:
Well, I’m Catholic. But I have to tell you. I told you I got the Caine Award for
that. But also they’re going to tear down the old stake house; it’s on the corner
here. It’s abandoned now. And a lot of people came to me about what could I do
about that. I said, “Nothing.” But I did do something. They were gonna tear it
down, [Track 3] but I took the initiative to call the Director of Temporal Affairs
in Salt Lake and asked if they would consider donating land to Hyrum for a little
children’s amusement park. And I think they’re going to do it. So it’s a two level
park. And it would just be ideal to get trees in there and have it; it’s not big
enough for too many things. But we don’t have any parks on the west side of
town. And so I called the Stake President and the Bishop and told them. They
were amazed that I talked to that level. I think they were afraid to.
But I figure if you talk to the head honcho. Just say, when we had foreign
students, Dr. Chase was president of the University then. I called him one day and
I said, “Dr. Chase, Eduardo Zapata, they’re not going to let him register for next
year.” And I said, “I don’t know why. I think you ought to know that his family in
Venezuela are the head of the Christian Democratic Party. And that could get
serious, not letting a son register here.” Oh, he said, “I can overrule the board on
that.”
So anyway I called him back later. And he says, “Well, I found out, he flunked
everything except one, you see, and he’s got an A in that.” And then I says, “Well
what was that?” And he said, “Soccer.” And I said, “Let him go home then. Tell
him to reregister as a tourist to come in and get things started again.”
And Eduardo went home and he called me from there. He was upset, he couldn’t
get back in. [Chuckling] But there’s so many. We had some high ranking people
here for things. I don’t know if you want to know. Maybe I shouldn’t tell those
things. The University and Venezuela were going to establish an irrigation college
in Caracas. And we were so heavily involved with foreign students from all over
there that they asked if we would work with Dr. Grant Reese and his wife for a
reception for the ones coming in. And I said, “yeah, that would be great,” you
know, so we were making all the arrangements and some of them arrived on
Sunday and they called up here about how did they get to Logan. And I said, “Just
cool your heels. You’re not supposed to be here until Monday.” Terrible, you
know. They were Ambassadors from the OAS. Well, they get here and they put
them up in the Metro Motel, it’s just the motel, the old one there on, up by
Frederico’s is it.
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�DE:
Okay. So kind of right as you’re heading out towards the canyon.
TK:
Yeah.
DE:
The hotel there.
TK:
Well, anyhow. They put them up there and they’re calling for room service. They
said, “We don’t have room service.” They wanted drinks, you know. And the next
thing, they go to the meeting and it’s in, we call it United Nations Room. It’s got a
horseshoe shaped table they all sat around. One of them was smoking a cigar, and
so he had to put it out. Another one wanted to know if they had coffee. I said,
“We don’t have coffee here.” Finally one of them gets up he says, “I thought this
was a joint venture thing.” He said, “I’m not staying here, if it’s one sided I’m
going home.” And oh, he broke the meeting up. Well they told, called Grant in
and told him, they said, “Don’t get involved in that reception, leave it alone.”
So I said “Well, we’ll have it anyhow.” And I called these Latin students and I
said, “We’re gonna have two bowls of punch.” I said, “Bring whatever you’ve
got.” Because they’d have rum and everything you know. And I said “We’ll have
sin and some: some with and some without it.” And then Sunday, what do you get
them? Pizza. No place open. So I order a whole bunch of pizzas there. We had
tables set up nice. But they had interpreters from Washington [Track 4] here.
And one of them came up to me and said, “Does the University always do things
like this? Oh no! I said, “This is very, very unusual.”[Laughing]
So anyhow they got straightened out and they went ahead with it and got it going.
And it turned out they put Hermano Scotegi [?] (he was from Caracas; just got a
doctorate degree at the University), and he was the first president of the college
down there – Joint Venture College. But I don’t know. It’s always been
interesting living here.
DE:
Very interesting. Well, this has been Darren Edwards interviewing Ted Kindred.
Here in his home in Hyrum, Utah. Thank you again for your time. The date is
August 13, 2008.
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�
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Ted Kindred interview, 13 August 2008, and transcription
Description
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Mr. Kindred talks living in Logan Canyon at Beirdneau, his work with Thiokol as an engineer, his family activities up Logan Canyon, and his local history efforts.
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Kindred, Theodore J., 1918-
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Edwards, Darren
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Kindred, Theodore J., 1918---Interviews
Kindred, Theodore J., 1918---Family
Kindred, Theodore J., 1918---Career in Consulting
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Saint Anne's Retreat (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Beirdneau (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Vacation homes--Utah--Logan Canyon
Sunrise Campground (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Camping--Utah--Logan Canyon
Sun dance--Utah--Logan Canyon
Holy Eagle, Chief, b. 1889
Land use--Utah--Logan Canyon
Roads--Widening--Utah--Logan Canyon
Entertaining--Utah--Logan Canyon--Anecdotes
Western Writers' Conference
Congresses and conventions--Utah--Logan--Anecdotes
Hardware Ranch (Utah)--History
Old Ephraim (Bear)
American West Heritage Center (Wellsville, Utah)
Cache Valley (Utah and Idaho)--History
Garr, Jack
Students, Foreign--Utah--Logan--Anecdotes
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Oral history
Interviews
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Logan Canyon (Utah)
Sinks (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Hardware Ranch (Utah)
Blacksmith Fork Canyon (Utah)
Saint Anne's Retreat (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Beirdneau (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Malibu (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Guinavah (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Sunrise Campground (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Ricks Spring (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Utah
United States
Hyrum (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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1950-1959
1960-1969
1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999
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2000-2009
21st century
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eng
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 3 Fd. 7
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Logan Canyon Reflections
-
http://highway89.org/files/original/d341243978d7f1d7086309a7471e26ef.mp3
1010d040329266f228f303f415248229
http://highway89.org/files/original/d0b6f76d4fe93ebd64933ed0299cc05a.pdf
cf2c2934900274c42333de1c0b255a39
PDF Text
Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Dave Baumgartner
Place of Interview:
Date of Interview:
Mr. Baumgartner’s home in Lewiston, Utah
5 May 2008
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Brad Cole
Brad Cole
Recording Equipment:
Marantz PMD660 Digital Recorder
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Susan Gross, 20 July 2008
Brad Cole; Randy Williams 15 March 2011
Brief Description of Contents: The interview contains information on the childhood, education
and the career of Dave Baumgartner as a forester, the various positions held within the Forest
Service and his views on management. There are many anecdotes from his personal experiences
in managing in the Logan Canyon and Logan District of the Forest Service, including his
attitudes regarding the road expansion up Logan Canyon and his idea to include land users when
making decisions.
Reference:
BC = Brad Cole (Interviewer; Associate Dean, USU Libraries)
DB = Dave Baumgartner
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcript. All additions to transcript are noted with brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 1: A]
BC:
Hi, this is Brad Cole, from Utah State University Special Collections and Archives. It’s
Monday, May 5th, 2008, and we’re visiting today with Dave Baumgartner on our Logan
Canyon Land Use and Management Oral History Project. Dave, I’m going to start off
where I usually do and ask you when and where you were born.
DB:
I was born July 29, 1942, in Salt Lake City.
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�BC:
Growing up in Salt Lake City, what are your memories of that?
DB:
A lot of open, abandon farm fields. My dad had a little tiny place with a big chicken coop
in the back that he raised a lot of chickens. Then on the rest of the property he grew
pansies for sale, and little junipers for landscaping. Behind our house from there all the
way to Great Salt Lake were just a few farm buildings and such, so we roamed that
country a lot.
BC:
And who were your parents?
DB:
My dad’s name is Heber Baumgartner. My mother’s maiden name was Allen. My
grandpa came from Switzerland when he was two years in 1898, I think it was. He and
his little family are my only relatives in Salt Lake City.
BC:
Really? Interesting. And then as far as you mentioned the landscape of Salt Lake, do you
think that affected your future?
DB:
You know, ever since I was a tiny kid, I can never remember wanting to be a policeman,
fly airplanes, or a fireman. I always wanted to be a forester from as far back as I can
remember. That’s what I wanted to be.
BC:
As a family, did you spend much time in the outdoors, growing up?
DB:
My grandpa was an arborist and a horticulturist. He was the primary caretaker for
Memory Grove, which is just off the hill from the State Capital, for most of his adult life
is where he worked, there. And so he was kind of a man of the outside anyway. And so I
remember growing up – we didn’t do what I would say is a ton of camping, but we did a
lot of it. And we usually fished a little bit wherever we went. We hiked a lot in Big
Cottonwood Canyon, up around Brighton, up to the lakes that are, you know, above
Brighton there. In those days it wasn’t really busy. [Laughing] Not like it is today!
BC:
Do you have any special memories of that period at all?
DB:
You know, not really. It was a happy childhood, we had a good time. Even from our
young ages we were allowed to go out in those fields. And we used to hike from my
house all the way out to the Salt Lake Airport. They had an old airplane dump out there
and we used to fly the old World War II torpedo bomber carcasses that they had laying
around in that place! [Laughing]
Then we hunted rabbits – I mean there wasn’t anything there, we could walk all the way
to Great Salt Lake if we wanted to, but we usually ended up by the Surplus Canal, fish for
carp and shot our .22s at whatever wiggled.
My folks weren’t extremely wealthy, so we had, you know our, I remember, coal stoves
and climbing into the house to get coal to put into the coal cook stove. That’s what heated
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�the house too, for a lot of years. But you know we were just typical kids. We played
football, we hiked a lot, broke our bones. Stuff like that.
BC:
You mentioned that you kind of had the goal to be a forester from a young age –
DB:
Yes.
BC:
When did you did you start pursuing that?
DB:
In high school there were classes that were optional, like botanies and zoologies, and
those kinds of things. You didn’t have to take those, but I took them all. I took all the
natural sciences that the high school offered. Which was basically those two, and
chemistry and a few things like that. I wasn’t very good with chemistry, but the other
stuff we were pretty good with.
BC:
And which high school was that?
DB:
I went to West High School in Salt Lake City.
BC:
And from there, where did you pursue your education after that?
DB:
Utah State University; graduated from there 1969.
BC:
And that was with a bachelor’s degree?
DB:
I had a bachelor’s degree in Forestry and also – it’s not a degree, but I took enough extra
classes that I also qualified as a watershed specialist or a hydrologist. I wasn’t an
engineer hydrologist, but a wildland hydrologist. When I actually got hired by the Forest
Service, I was hired as a watershed specialist, not as a forester. I spent three and a half
years on the Pike National Forest in Colorado as a watershed specialist. And then I knew
that wasn’t where my career wanted to go. I wanted to work on the districts and in the
woods, and not in the supervisor’s office. And so I spent my time there, you know,
getting acquainted with the Forest Service, but as soon as I had an opportunity to go out
to the district I took it.
So I lasted there about, a little over three years, and then I went to the Shoshone National
Forest in Wyoming. I spent in two places seven and a half years on that forest; three years
at Dubois and three and a half in Cody. And then from there we moved to the Sawtooth
in Idaho. And I actually spent seven and a half years there. And then I was the ranger
here in Logan until [19]’93, and then in ’93 I had to go to the regional office! [Laughing]
And I spent, I should put quotes around this, I spent from 1993 until year 2000, I retired
at the end of the year 2000. They were fun years in the regional office, they were
interesting years, but they were really discouraging years too as you saw the Forest
Service begin to unwind as to what it used to be. As to what it once was into what it was
becoming, and it was sad to see that change coming.
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�BC:
Maybe explain that a little more, like you know, what it once was and then what it—
DB:
Well, when I started with the Forest Service in 1969, through the late 60s and through the
early, well even through the 70s – and you’ll recall this – there were many people that
made and awfully lot of money writing books on how to run a successful company.
Those books were really good books. I was convinced when I read them that if I had an
opportunity to lead a unit, and I could use the characteristics that you read about in those
books, that we would be more successful than not. The Forest Service in those days was
just coming off the peak of its glory, so to speak. Those writers and people in that field of
management were selecting on an annual basis, you know, the ten top companies or
organizations in the country at that particular time, and the Forest Service, surprisingly
not, was one of them. It had a great spirit about itself; there was a great décor about the
people that worked there. It was a good job. We enjoyed being out in the woods working
with people and all those kinds of things.
I don’t know what changed, to be honest with you. We started to bring in more people
that were not necessarily forest, range kinds of folks. All the “-ologists”, the specialists
that began to come in there in the name of diversity – I wasn’t sure how to react with that,
but their attitude about work was different than the people that preceded them. There was
not as much of a tendency to work long hours. You know we averaged 9-10 hours a day
and never thought about overtime for a second. You’d leave early in the morning to go
someplace in the woods that required time to get there and it required time to get home,
so you’d get home at 8-9 at night, you know, and it was no big deal. But those employees
that started to come in, in my opinion, in that time -- they had a different ethic. I don’t
know that you could say they loved the woods -- it was a job in the field that they trained
for – but whether it was their perfect job or not, I can’t say. But it did begin to change the
Forest Service.
One of the traits of really good companies is that most of the operating money is at the
ground level, where the work’s done. And you saw a tendency in the Forest Service to
start to take more and more of their budget and put them into supervisor’s office, which
funded the specialists that all the supervisors thought they had to have. It was a time in
the mid-80s when all the forest planning stuff started to become the big emphasis and
they all thought they had to have specialists in order to write their forest plans.
What was interesting about the forest planning process, in my opinion, is that the
Congress never intended the Forest Service, when they passed that law, to get as intense
in forest planning as we got. There were times, I recall, when some of the planners
wanted us to actually document the number of times we were going to clean an outhouse,
that would be part of the forest plan to give us direction. I heard one staff officer say one
time, “The reason we’re doing that is because you rangers aren’t getting the job done!” In
other words, our campgrounds weren’t as clean as they should’ve been – and that part’s
true, but that wasn’t the way to fix it. And so our plan started to get deeper, and deeper
and deeper, and it took longer, and longer and longer to get them approved. It was
interesting to me that by the time the process got from the start until somebody approved
the plan at the end, many years had gone by and the issues had changed! And yet, we
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�were operating with a plan that now wasn’t up-to-date. And you know you just saw our
effectiveness being eroded away. People were spending way too much time in the office,
doing planning, in a plan that wasn’t going to be current when it actually went out on the
street. And so, I guess, a long story short is that it was wasted energy. The issues had
changed and the plan wasn’t necessarily addressing what the current issues needed
addressing. And yet, you were theoretically bound by the old plan when you needed to be
in a different box, and the plan kept pulling you back to this box because that’s what’s
written there – but time has changed and you needed to be over this one. And the
arguments of trying to get back and forth between what’s real and what was old. I think it
was wearing people out.
Another interesting thing about that is that, and this again is my opinion, a specialist,
when they came to work for the Forest Service (an “ologist” of some sort), with the
exception of wildlife biologists (many districts had wildlife biologists, the ended up being
an issue by themselves) the specialists in the supervisor’s office had no objectives. They
were supposed to advise us in the woods from time to time. You know, we were
supposed to go ask their opinion about cause and effect of some management activity we
were involved in, and they would write an opinion. Whether we agreed with it or not
didn’t matter, we did what needed to be done on the ground. It frustrated them greatly
because some of them were more swung to the environmentalist side of things and they
saw, timber activity for example, being very anti to the good of the forest. They were
often opposed or very restrictive in their comments in how we would go about doing that
business.
As a side note, despite the fact that we’d been managing timber stands since 1905, all of a
sudden, you know in the 1980s we couldn’t do it right anymore. With the caveat that it is
true that in the 1960s there was way too much emphasis in the Forest Service and in the
political processes for harvesting timber, that’s true. And many ranger districts and
people working on their districts did some really dumb things that generated justifiable
controversy, and justifiable reaction. The solution wasn’t the right solution. The way we
went and tied up our hands so much that you couldn’t manage at all. And many of the
“ologists” contributed to that confusion because of their backgrounds and where they
came from and so forth, they would’ve been really good Park Service employees because
that’s what the Park Service does. But that wasn’t the mission of the Forest Service, by
law it wasn’t their mission. It got to the point where it was just a big argument to get
things done. The effectiveness of the organization, I think you could plot an accurate
curve that shows the Forest Service effectiveness declining as a result of those years.
To this very day I’m not convinced, well I am convinced the Forest Service is just
another government bureaucracy now, it has lost the prestige and the accuracy and the
wisdom that it once had. Now we’re managing by a book instead – forest management is
not an exact science, there has to be a lot of intuition and lot of creative thought that goes
into managing those woods. When you try to do it from a book it’s not nearly as
effective. I listen to a lot of my old compadres that are still working with the Forest
Service and I know it’s not the same, and I don’t know that they’re as happy as we once
were. It seems to be a struggle.
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�Even in the fire organization we used to escape to fires – what a wonderful experience
that was! Not that the forest was burning, that’s not the point; but you had one objective,
it didn’t matter what you got paid, what your salary was, what your position in the Forest
Service was – you went away to a fire and you played a role and you focused on an
objective. I might be supervising – at the time I might have been a GS9 [US Federal
General Schedule (GS) Classification System], supervising GS13s – you know, the
bosses! And I’m their boss on a fire, kind of thing. But nobody cared. That was never an
issue! You never had to get out of your chair because some GS13 walked into the room,
for example. But that does happen in some agencies, but it never happened in the fire
organization. You just went, you did your duty, you put the fire out and you went home
feeling good about it. But now they’ve got so many rules that those guys have to pay
attention to, and so many checkmarks on a form they have to put on, you know, before
they can proceed anywhere. They look at you and they say, “It’s just not fun. It’s just not
working.” There are just too many handcuffs put on people now days. Anyway.
BC:
You mentioned you were the district ranger in Logan. What exactly is a district ranger?
DB:
This is what made the Forest Service the organization it was. World class organizations,
according to the people that study this, only have seven or less line positions -- the Forest
Service had four! World class and then some: a chief, a regional forester, forest
supervisor, and a district ranger. The district ranger was the number four position in that
organizational scheme. Everyone else who worked for the Forest Service, with the
exception of the research branch, (in my day – it’s different now – but in my day) worked
for one of those four positions.
Generally speaking, at the National Headquarters there was the National Forest System
(and that’s the side I worked for), then there was a research part that you know, that was
an organization separate from the National Forest organization. Then there was a state
and private organization that dealt with the laws and what have you that dealt with the
government’s assistance to states in forestry kinds of issues. Those three basic
organizations had their own organizations. So we’ll just push those two over to the side
(the state and private and the research guys, because that’s not what I was) and I worked
for the National Forest system side of things, and there was only four people in the chain
of command. And everybody else on that side worked for one of those four people. So it
was decentralized. As a district ranger I actually had more authority than the
superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, in the context that they could not sign
environmental documents in the days I worked around the Park. They had to go to their
next level to get approval for all of this stuff. You’d ask the ranger, I could sign those
documents up to you know, any environmental analysis that was done on a district the
ranger had the authority to sign those in those days (it may have changed now today, I
haven’t kept track of it), but in those days you know. We wrote the environmental
statements and the supervisor would sign those. We had a lot of authority to do the
business and it was a very effective way to do business.
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�So the district ranger’s responsibility is to, the National Forest system is organized into
forests, of course -- the regions forests and districts. There are nine regions (although we
have a number ten because that’s what Alaska is but there’s a region missing in there – I
don’t think there’s a region seven – anyway, doesn’t matter). The regions then are
organized into National Forests. Region four regional office is in Ogden, we don’t need
to count them, but I think there’s about 16 or so without counting them up, National
Forests attached to that regional office: in Utah, Idaho, western Montana and Nevada.
That’s the area of the region. Then the forests are usually organized into, depending on
the forest, into four, five or six ranger districts. Each ranger district then has the
responsibility of management on – anywhere between 250,000 acres – I was on one
district where the district area was a half a million acres. The ranger has the responsibility
of the activities that take place on that district. Usually has, depending again on the
district size, Logan had three assistant positions: a clerk, an assistant clerk, and some
long-term but temporary positions. I think we had three of those. Then in the summer the
workforce could expand, depending on what kind of budget was available to 30, 40, 50,
60, 70, 80 seasonals that would come on and work during the summertime. We had the
responsibility of all of that; their welfare, you know, their work assignments, the
management planning that took place on the district. We did that. The Logan budget ran
anywhere between, 600 to $900,000.
BC:
Wow.
DB:
Depending on the year. So you’re responsible for the budget and the money, and how it’s
spent and all the physical integrity of all of that sort of thing. If somebody makes a
mistake it’s always the ranger’s fault, that sort of thing.
BC:
[Laughing] When you started in Logan, what year was that?
DB:
I came here in 1984 as the ranger.
BC:
Okay. And what was the condition of the forest when you arrived?
DB:
I followed a dear old man, by the name of MJ Roberts, who had been the ranger here at
Logan for nearly 20 years. MJ grew up in a period when the Forest Service was doing
some interesting political things that, in hind sight, was probably not the wisest thing for
us to do. So it would be easy to criticize that generation for the work that they did, but
they did a good job based on the circumstances that they [had] to deal with in those days.
The problem was what they left was hard. For example, during the 1960s and 70s,
especially in the 1960s – and this carried over into the 70s as well – Congress was not
funding the Forest Service as well as they had in the past. The Forest Service’s influence
in Congress wasn’t as strong as it had been previous to that, and some of the funds were
getting a little short. Congress had different things in mind: timber was one of them,
watershed was one of them, and recreation wasn’t one of them. So as a strategy we
decided that we wouldn’t put as much emphasis on our campgrounds either. We would
let them just go downhill a little bit, and then Congress would recognize they needed to
put more money there, and therefore they would! But they didn’t. So by 1984 when I
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�came, the condition of our campgrounds was, they were in pretty bad shape. Our roads
were in pretty bad shape; our trails were in bad shape. We were just out doing things, but
we weren’t accomplishing a lot. My recreation crews, for example, I discovered – they
would go to a campground and they would paint one table, then they would drive 20
miles to another campground and paint one table! We were making no progress and we
were going basically downhill on those things. So when MJ finally retired and I had an
opportunity to come here, I actually made a promise I would not say anything for six
months, until I knew that my premonitions were accurate, and they were.
So the issues that we had, especially in Logan Canyon, was the condition of our
campgrounds and picnic grounds; the condition of our roads; the condition of our trails
were a big concern; off-road vehicle traffic. We were getting about 12 new miles of
unauthorized, new trails and roads created every year just by the off-road vehicle traffic.
They were going into places they shouldn’t be going to, we had trails starting up all the
ridges and up all the canyons that didn’t have roads in them. That was a big concern. And
then in Logan Canyon itself we had a horrendous litter problem. I mean it was almost
embarrassing to drive up the canyon sometimes and see all the messes that the general
public had to look at. It was our responsibility, theoretically, to keep things neat and
clean, and we weren’t doing a very good job with that.
During my whole time on the district, those five issues drove most of what we were
doing, with the exception of one other area that we can talk about later. The other area
involved the whole district and not just Logan Canyon. And so with a limited budget and
limited people, the great dilemma was, “how are you going to make progress in all of
those areas?” That was the great dilemma. Another issue that raised its head, during my
tenure there anyway was Logan Canyon highway. That wasn’t an issue when I first
started, but right in the middle they decided they wanted to improve the highway for
another section. After having put one phase in and then lost on the second phase, I think
is the way the history goes, the environmentalists took them to court and the court shut
the state down. They backed away from trying to improve the canyon. And then came
back while I was there with yet another proposal that got very, very controversial for
awhile. Really for some silly reasons – it didn’t have to get that way. We as government
workers sometimes don’t make the wisest decisions all the time.
So anyway, that’s what we were dealing with -- those five things. I was there for eight
and a half years and those issues didn’t change.
BC:
What role did the Forest Service play in the Logan Canyon, the road highway?
DB:
Well, probably more than we should have could have or legally could have because the
easement for the highway obviously was under the control of the state of Utah and the
Federal Highway Administration. But technically once you got outside of the right of
way, any impacts to Logan Canyon was an issue to us. We felt very strongly that we
should have some input into the plan to improve the highway.
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�At the beginning I found out that UDOT was going to propose some improvements to the
canyon from the newspaper – they didn’t even call us to tell us. And so they left notice of
a meeting, I went to the meeting; I listened to what they were trying to do. When they
were finished I walked up to the highway engineer who was a nice, cooperative fellow,
and I said to him – his name was Lynn Zollinger – and I said, “Lynn, you’re talking about
writing an environmental impact statement on a highway that you only propose to replace
three bridges.” (The bridge at Right Hand Fork had deteriorated to the point where they
needed to replace it; the next bridge up was too narrow; and then the big bridge at the
dugway – I mean if you try to pass a semi truck coming this way, if you remember, and
you were not too tight against the edge, mirrors could actually click past each other, it
was that tight.) And they wanted to write an environmental impact statement and I said to
them, “Why? The bridges are in place, they have to have maintenance. If that’s all you’re
proposing, why are you going to spend $500,000 and write an environmental impact
statement on something that doesn’t matter?” He says, “What do you mean?” And I said,
“You could write an environmental assessment for less than $10,000, and replace those
bridges.” And he blinked a little bit and said, “Really? I’ll even volunteer to write them
for you.”
So they went back to the Federal Highway Administration, and what an interesting
experience that was! The Federal Highway Administration, their regional office for this
area was in Salt Lake City, and they said to UDOT, “No, by golly! You said that this
program was controversial, it’s controversial and you’ve got to write an impact
statement!” So I went down there one time and I said to the engineer down there, I said,
“If all they’re going to do is replace bridges you don’t need to spend $500,000 of the
taxpayer’s money writing a document that doesn’t matter.” And the guy turned to me and
he said, “What right does a forester have telling an engineer how to do his job?”
[Laughing] And I said to him, “I’m not trying to do that, I’m just trying to save you some
time, energy and money.” He says, “No. The state said it was controversial, it is
controversial, therefore, and they’re going to write an environmental impact statement.”
So they wouldn’t back off of that position. It was their money that the state needed to do
the job, of course. So they came back and said, “We’ve got to write the impact
statement.” So I told them, and this in hindsight might have been bad advice, I said,
“Then write the environmental impact statement for the whole canyon. One project for
the next ten years, and then you’ll only have to do it once. We’ll do the bridges, you’ll do
passing lanes and other kinds of things that you might think are important and so forth,
and it will work fine.”
This is the interesting thing. (A side note on what I thought management and the public
ought to be like.) I’ll tell you a little bit later on another issue why this is important. We
knew the public was interested in what we were doing. And we knew that they were mad
at us for not listening to them. So I told my staff, “Folks, we’ve got to go out of our way
to talk to these folks and to discuss what the issues are.” So I went to the
environmentalists who were opposed to anything in Logan Canyon, and I said, “Folks,
they want to replace four bridges. They have to widen them a little bit because they’re
deteriorating and we need to do something up with the dugway, it’s just absolutely too
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�narrow.” And they basically didn’t disagree with that, but they didn’t trust UDOT. And
so I said, “Okay. If I can get a member of your group to sit on a committee with the
engineers that are planning all of this and if UDOT will agree that they will not proceed
until they have an agreement in this committee, what will you do?” And they said, “Well
if we can have a say and they will listen to what our issues are, we can’t oppose; as long
as they’ll be a little bit flexible.” And so we had the solution. Except at the very first
meeting where all of these people met, UDOT had hired CH2MHill as their primary
contractor, and the CH2MHill engineer who was in charge of the project got up and said,
“We are going to make the decisions.” And I thought, “You can’t do that, we didn’t agree
to that. You’re going to lose the environmental community if you do that.” And they just
would not back off of that. What they said was, “We’ll make the decisions, then you can
review it. And if you don’t like those decisions, we can talk about it.” But they were
never willing to talk about it in the sense that we could change it.
And the environmentalists – they came to several meetings, and then the wall went up
and it was not going to be possible to coordinate and to cooperate. We were that close! I
had my fingers parted about 3/8 of an inch to having that controversy settled and to get
the bridges fixed and then we would negotiate just some passing lanes somewhere. And it
went from there to, you know, to the concept, “Well this is a highway, we have to have
highway standards. We’ve got to have eight feet outside the white line, even in the
middle part of the canyon.” That was the argument that started. We came back with
arguments like, “But in Yellowstone National Park they don’t have eight feet on the other
side of the white line. You concur that you can do other kinds of things but if you go that
way, then you’ve got to fuss with the river again.” That was my biggest concern. I’m a
fisherman.
When I went to school here at Utah State University, I can remember in one of the classes
that we went up Logan Canyon, on the old highway (before the first improvement section
was actually done – because they built that just after I graduated) they had a famous hole
they called “The Big Hole.” The road kind of looped right around it this way. And in that
hole was a 15 pound cutthroat that they’d shocked out of there one day. In those days you
could catch three or four pound rainbows and occasionally a large cutthroat and a large
brown out of the river. It was a good stream.
But when they built that second section, they began to straight-line the river. Their fill
slope went right down to the edge in one area, which I’ll illustrate an issue it caused here
in a second. But the Big Hole became a controversy in that first phase that they put in
there. People were objecting that they were going to run the river straight down the edge
of the highway and cut that meander out of the river totally. UDOT finally compromised
and said that they would protect the hole. So they built two bridges that they didn’t want
to build. The problem was they built the bridge to pass floodwater, but not in a
hydrologic-compatible way to protect that corner. What they did was they built a coverted cement box and put the bridge over it. It would allow the river to go through it
alright, but it constricted it greatly. So when you constrict water and blow it out the other
end it’s going to come out in a great philosophy. And so it came out, was able to pick up
the bed load and move it someplace. Just down stream from the Big Hole is the other
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�bridge, which the fast water backs up against and slows down, and then shoots out the
other side of it. But while it slowed down it dropped that bed load right in the middle of
that Big Hole. And it’s gone. The river goes through there, but the prime habitat that was
there for that one big fish, from a 10-15 foot hole went to two feet with water running
over it. You know, the fish is gone of course.
This cut-slope issue became an issue in about the spring of 1984 when I got here, that
winter of ’83-’84 there was a lot of snow in the woods. When the water came out, it came
out hard. Well, when the river comes up it spreads out over its little floodplain and there
are no issues. We have summer homes here, here and here, scattered everywhere up and
down that river, and there was enough floodplain that flooding of those summer homes
wasn’t an issue. When that highway slope came down to the edge of the river in some
places, and the water had no place to go except off the other side -- where all the cabins
were -- we had water going through many of the cabins a foot deep through their front
rooms and all that sort of thing. Anyway, we knew those kinds of things were going to be
issues; they were issues in the past. And what they had done in the canyon caused some
of those issues. We were hoping that we would learn from the past and do better things in
the future. But the engineers that were working on that at that time – I’m telling you that
they’re good men – but they’re engineers. As a forester I can say this, because there is a
controversy between foresters and engineers on who knows best of how to do things.
Engineers are good at building things, but foresters have a little bit better sensitivity to
the land. If engineers had that same sensitivity there wouldn’t have been a controversy up
there.
So anyway, through the middle part of the canyon there was attempt to get the road wider
and wider and wider. And there’s no place to widen the road in there without massive
cuts up the side of the hill and/or straightening out the river or massive concrete bridges
that cantilever over the river so they don’t have to do any damage to the stream channel –
which they do anyway because the flow’s not the same. That project, for those kinds of
reason, just escalated and escalated and escalated until there wasn’t a whole lot of
cooperation. UDOT was doing what they would do as engineers. To the credit of some of
them though, they knew that there had to be some compromises there and they were
working a very delicate balance between the compromises and what the Federal Highway
Administration was going to require of them. I felt sorry for them like that, but they
began to make decisions in closets and then coming out and trying to justify them in
public. If you have time, I’ll tell you why that doesn’t work, and so forth.
Bottom line of the long story is that they improved Logan Canyon highway and they did
a remarkably good job doing it. Yes, they backed off of some of the things they wanted to
do, but they were able to do some of the things that the environmental community
opposed, thinking that it was bad, bad, bad. Once it was built you could see that they
really didn’t do any damage and they really did improve the highway. We have some
passing lanes where there weren’t passing lanes before on some flat country. You know it
worked out really, really well. I think the bottom line of all of it is that UDOT was able to
improve that highway just about as well as they wanted to and could’ve done. The issue
was they could have done it at the beginning, $500,000 cheaper had they just realized that
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�they had a public that was concerned. If they would’ve worked just a little bit differently
with the public and listened to them a little bit, responded in a positive way, they
wouldn’t have had to spend over $1,000,000 to complete the document. The $1,000,000
would have built all three bridges. [Laughing] And would’ve done a lot to improve their
highway, and yet they put it into the paperwork, and then still had to spend the money to
do what they probably could’ve got away with anyway had they managed it just a little
bit differently.
Now I get criticized sometimes for criticizing UDOT that way. I don’t mean to sound
critical of them, but I’ve been through the experiences that they contributed in the canyon
issue. And I knew what could work and what couldn’t work. The sad thing was is they
just couldn’t or wouldn’t listen and respond well enough to allow those kinds of things to
work in their favor. So they’ve got big walls built, their thick, hard steel reinforced
concrete walls – anything they do in that canyon now they’re just not going to get any
cooperation from people that might oppose them automatically because they don’t trust
the highway engineer -- which is a shame because like I said earlier, there are some really
good people there. They don’t deserve that kind of criticism. But on the other hand, they
brought it on themselves just by being too autocratic in the way they did their business.
Logan Canyon ended up being one of the most interesting and the most difficult of all the
assignments that we had. The Forest Service isn’t clean in this either. The supervisor got
tired of UDOT engineers complaining that our district was requiring them to do too many
little things. I stood right in the middle of them and told them they weren’t going to do
this and this and this, they had to consider this. And they kept asking me what authority I
had to do this. I don’t know if I had any authority or not, I just said it. They finally put the
Forest Engineer in charge of the Logan Canyon issue and backed the district off a little
bit, which I thought was a mistake. It further built the walls a little bit thicker. Our Forest
Engineer was able to work with the highway engineers, but so could we. But it was
engineer to engineer instead of a different disciplines trying to work out, you know, a
“better vision” so to speak.
But again, the bottom line is they built what they could have built, they built what they
needed to build. They could’ve done that in the beginning had they been a little bit more
open with the public, in my opinion, and we would’ve saved the taxpayers several
hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. I think that’s what bothers me the most. I
knew they were going to build what they were going to build. And I knew that it was
okay, what they were going to do. It didn’t need to cost so much extra money just in the
process of getting it approved, in my opinion.
BC:
You described kind of a process where you tried to get all parties at the table in the
beginning of that. Did you successfully use that same system on other, like travel plans,
and things like that?
DB:
Yes. Travel plan is probably one of the things I think the district should be the proudest
of all of their accomplishments during the [19]‘80s and early ‘90s. It came to pass in the
most interesting way. My whole career goal, for example, I wanted to be a district ranger.
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�I didn’t want to be a forest supervisor, I didn’t want to go to a supervisor’s office, I didn’t
want to go to the Washington office; I wanted to be a district ranger. I’m not egotistical
when I tell you this, and I’m not boasting when I tell you this either, but that’s what I
trained for. I read management books that lots of people read, and I read them several
times. I knew what it took. I knew what successful organizations did. I knew what
successful bosses did. I tried very, very hard – these aren’t my ideas, they’re other
people’s ideas – but I was impressed with them enough to think that I needed to try them.
Most changes in management styles take three or four to five years to implement. And if
you get discouraged in that timeframe and don’t get to the fifth year, they’ll throw them
out saying it was a bad idea when it really wasn’t. You just have to be able to stick to it
for that long.
One of the things that makes an organization successful is their exemplary customer
service, I mean they bend over backwards for their customers. The Forest Service
customer is the person that uses the woods: the camper, the hunter, the fisherman, the
person that drives up and down the road just enjoying the scenery. Another trait is that
the boss managed by wandering around. He knew what was going on. He didn’t sit in an
office and have people report to him and then make decisions on somebody’s spin to an
issue. He was there; he knew what he was looking at. So I spent an extraordinary amount
of time in the woods. My supervisor used to get after me, “I want you to this meeting!” “I
can’t be to this meeting, I am going over here.” And I resisted going to meetings a lot.
And/or when she called on the telephone I was never in the office. And she said, “I know
you’re out there doing your duty, but I need you!” I couldn’t do that. Our district motto
was “The highest quality money could buy.” And our mindset wasn’t there. That’s why I
told you about painting the tables. One in the campground and one in another
campground doesn’t make the campground look good.
So I knew what the crews were doing and I knew what the people in the woods were
thinking, because I went and asked them. During hunting season I would get in my
pickup truck and I’d stop at every hunting camp and I’d walk in the hunting camp.
Sometimes it was hostile. But this is the way I learned about what I’m going to explain to
you here in a second. I walked into a hunting camp one time in Temple Fork. They had
their campers parked with their rear ends out over the creek, and they were beating up the
bank (not any worse than the cows had done, but you know) they were in the wrong
place. I wanted to ask them if they would be really mad if we rocked an area 10-20 feet
off the edge of the creek so they couldn’t park quite so close. But before I ever got that
out of my mouth, the guy says, “What are you doing here?” And I said, “Well I just came
to visit and give you a garbage bag and talk about picking up litter and keeping off-road
vehicles on the roads, this sort of thing.” He said, “I want you to know you’re in hostile
territory.” I said, “Why is that?” The guy was angry, but he wasn’t mean, you know? And
he said, “Let me tell you this story. My family, extended family had been camping in
Logan Canyon for 50 years.” (This was in the late [19]80s, so it goes back 50 years from
there.) And he said, “A couple of years ago.” (Just before I got there.) “You closed our
camping place.” It was just a dispersed spot. They drove down an old road and there was
a little flat they camped on every year, three or four, five, six times a year, and then hard
during the hunting season. We were closing roads because we were getting too many of
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�them, you know, unauthorized. So they moved to another location and they hadn’t been
there two months before a sign went up saying “This area is closed to camping.” They
moved to another area and we did the same thing (and this is over just a couple of years).
And they moved to another area and we did the same thing. And then they ended up here
on Temple Fork. And they said, “If you’re about to tell us that we’re going to move one
more time,” he said, “I’m going to shoot you.” [Laughing] But he was kidding! But he
was making his point. And I said, “That is really interesting.” And he told me some other
families that were having the same issues. And so I went to those families, actually went
to their houses, and I talked with them about that. And sure enough they had the same
concerns.
At that same time we were starting the travel plan process. And we had to identify all the
roads we wanted to leave open and all the roads that we were closing. We potentially had
300 miles of road roughly I think we figured out, that we were going to close. We kind of
had it in our mindset which ones they were too, because they were all the unauthorized
ATV roads. And so when we visited with them, we got the notion (I did anyway) that
they would like to have a say in this. The typical Forest Service method of travel
planning was we’d go back in the office and the district personnel would draw the roads
on the map. And we’d say, “Well leave this one open and we’ll close this one.” Then
we’d go to the public and try to justify it. They had no say in it and the first time they saw
it on the board was at the public meeting. They would look at it and of course they were
opposed; their favorite road’s being closed and nobody could tell them why.
So we did it differently. We took our map and we took every road off the district. We just
took the whole road system and took it off the map; there were no roads on the district at
all. Then we put the obvious main roads back on – the ones that we’d spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars putting in and maintaining over the years and our access to the
woods kind of roads that would be there no matter what. Then we did something that no
other district did as far as I know. We invited the public to come in over a long period of
time and we asked them to tell us which roads they would like to see back on the map -with four criteria; and the public bought off on the criteria before we even opened up the
process. Any roads you put back on can’t affect water, the streams; it can’t affect
vegetation; it can’t erode the soil; it can’t affect wildlife; and we can’t have more than 1.5
miles of road per square mile. And the public said, “Those are fair criteria.” So it was a
piece of cake. People walked in the door. The old families that said, “I’ve camped on this
spot” (and point to the map) “and drove down this little road, it goes down a rocky old
ridge to this little campsite; I would like you to open that road or leave that road open.
It’s just one road.” They didn’t care about the rest of the district, just the one road. You
went through those five criteria. If there were no issues with those five criteria we said,
“Okay.” And they would blink and some of them would say, “You’re kidding!” No! It
met the criteria, that’s what we agreed to, so we drew it on the map.
By the time eight or nine months had gone by (we left it open that long), we had the road
system on the district that most interested the people in the district. That was the
important point. I mean, 100% of the public didn’t come in – maybe only 20% came in,
but those were the ones that would cause the most issues if an issue were to be had.
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�Rudy Lukez – do you remember Rudy?
BC:
Um-hmm.
DB:
Rudy who was the local Sierra Club leader? Worked with us day and night on that thing.
I respected Rudy a lot, he was fair. And when we got to the end of it and said, “Rudy, this
is what it looked like.” He had no argument except for one little motorcycle track around
Logan Peak. He said, “I want you to close that,” and I said, “Rudy, why?” “Well
because--” the criteria comes to effect, it doesn’t affect any of those kinds of things. The
folks who ride a motorcycle do need a place to go. And he reluctantly said, “Well,
perhaps. But don’t be surprised if I don’t appeal your plan.” Anyway, there was a little
idle threat there. So we said, “Okay Rudy. You do what you need to do.” We published
that; put it out to the public. We never had one appeal on it, not one, not even Rudy. We
were just tickled to death! I mean, the process worked! You listen to the public, you
respond to them in ways that are positive. If you can implement some of their ideas and
kind of work with them on some of their concerns, they’ll support you. And they
supported us.
We didn’t get one appeal. Every ranger district around the Logan District: Montpelier
District, Ogden District – eight, nine, ten, 12 appeals apiece; takes months and months to
get them all resolved. Then you’ve got a travel plan that’s still controversial because
people still aren’t supporting you. They tear your signs out, they drive behind the barriers
anyway because nobody’s going to tell them what to do. We had a minor problem with
that on the ranger district here in Logan. Some of our signs did come out on a regular
basis, but we made it a priority that this is one of our important things – the travel plan
was – if it’s going to work we’ve got to enforce it fairly. So we all carried signs in our
trucks with us. We all knew which roads were supposed to be open and closed and if the
sign was missing we put one up. The first year we probably lost one a month, the same
sign every month on a road. The next year we might’ve only replaced it twice. By the
third year we weren’t replacing them at all. The public was beginning to support us. Most
of the activists in the valley were supporting us, in their club meetings and stuff they
were telling people that they needed to behave and so forth. And it was working. We
were really proud of the way that it was working.
If you were to interview Garth Barker, for example, I think he would say (maybe I’m
being too bold in saying this), but I think he would say that during that timeframe they
were comfortable and very, very pleased with what that process did for them, and were
really comfortable with it up until about maybe 1995-96 when one person on the Logan
District said, “We are going to review the decisions in the travel plan and the Forest
Service will do this process and then we’ll take it to the public.” And I can remember
Garth writing in the newspaper, or somehow I heard some background on it, “no, that’s
not we agreed to.” And the Forest Service did it anyway. And they’ve been gradually
losing the public ever since which is sad to me because it doesn’t have to happen but it is
happening. Anyway, that’s the travel plan thing.
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�BC:
Seems much more contentious now when you read about it in the paper.
DB:
Oh yeah. The walls are very, very deep and they’re very, very thick. Cross-country skiing
and snowmobiling are two controversial things that occurred even during that time there.
I knew it was an issue, I came from the Sawtooth NRA [National Recreational Area], and
just before I got there snow machiners and cross country skiers were having a hard time
getting along with each other. Somehow, (I don’t know who organized the meeting) they
came together and they made some agreements that worked for them. The snow machiner
needed early snow and the early snow of course is in the high country. But once it snows
up on the Sawtooths, the whole valley is full of snow and the snow machiners can go
anywhere and they agreed to back off the high country when sufficient snow was in the
low country. Then the cross country skiers (there were a lot of downhill cross country
skiers in those days there) would be able to ski off the road edges and down to the road
below and drive back up and do their thing. You know, it worked marvelously. So I knew
they could get along.
And so we already had wildlife closures in the travel plan and they weren’t controversial
they were protecting a few elk winter areas and the snow machiners knew that was
realistic and it wasn’t an issue, they could get around them without a problem.
Bunchgrass wasn’t an issue in those days because we wouldn’t let it become an issue.
The cross country skier wanted the snow machines out of Bunchgrass. But no, the cross
country skier was there before you guys were and you still can get off and out of their
way. In fact you ski up their track and you ski down their track. But they’re not going
where you’re going so we’re not going to worry too much about that right now. But the
maintenance shed area was controversial. They were not getting along very well there.
And I had both groups come into my office, not together but one at a time, and complain
about the other one. I told them, “You’re not going to make this into a controversy and
you’re going to have to get along because I’m not closing it to one way or the other, for
these reasons: the snow machiner goes up the road, up to Swan Creek and back and that
country up in there, and they basically make a track for you to get to the deep, powdered
snow on north slopes that you can ski down without – the snow machine can’t go there
because it’s too soft, they don’t like to go there. They’re going to do the south slopes.
Except for the day after a storm, the south slopes are going to crust over two or three days
in bright sunshine and it’s hard to ski south slopes on cross country skis, as the
technology was in those days. And the snow machine guys are just doing their thing.
They’re looping, looping, looping and climbing high up on the hill and having a good
time and coming back down. And both of you are using the same country but you’re not
in each other’s way. Is that not true?” Well they had to admit that. “Well we don’t like
their smell and we don’t like their noise.” Be that as it may, it’s not really an issue
because they’re not in the same place anyway. So I wouldn’t let it become an issue, and it
didn’t.
I feel bad that it is today, it’s a major issue today. And so is Bunchgrass a major issue
today. But in my opinion, the reason it is is because the Forest Service again made the
decision without talking to their public first. They tried to make a decision and then go
sell it, and that is the worst way you could ever do anything in the Forest Service. If a
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�ranger makes a decision and tries to sell it to the public without any public involvement,
that’s what he’s calling public involvement – he or she. That’s not public involvement.
That’s telling people what you’re going to do and they have no input in it. If it is gets
controversial you may not carry it out, but you also won’t implement good things that
people could enjoy if it were otherwise.
BC:
I’m kind of curious; you talk a lot about the interface with the public. When you were
becoming a forester and went to school was there any education on how to do public
management? Because it seems like that’s a big part of the job now.
DB:
It’s a major part of the job and no, you know we came out of school as technically trained
foresters. We were going to go to the woods and manage timber and wildlife – if you
were a wildlife biologist – and cows and sheep and goats. But not necessarily people. If
you were a forest recreationist and had a degree in forest recreation from Utah State
University you had more of that kind of training, but you were also designing
campgrounds and people flow patterns and trail maintenance standards and stuff like that.
BC:
How about, were you here when the Utah Wilderness deal went through--?
DB:
Yes, yes I was.
BC:
And—
DB:
I came after the negotiations were mostly done and just before the law was passed.
BC:
So how did that process, was it similar kind of -- ?
DB:
Again, it’s one of those sad examples of the public and the Forest Service not being able
to talk to each other in a positive way. The boundary for Mount Naomi wilderness, for
example, is in some places is not a manageable boundary. It has too many little wiggles
in it to say that it’s wilderness here, but then the next little squiggle in it it’s not and then
it’s wilderness, and so forth. And all the little cherry stems they put up the canyons, you
know, so you can drive to a trailhead deep inside the wilderness that comes down both
sides of the cherry stem.
I was in one meeting with Tom Lyons (who represented the environmentalists at the
time) and we were talking about a boundary in Green Canyon, down by Logan. The
boundary comes down the Logan Canyon-Green Canyon ridge in a very narrow little
stem that comes west towards Logan from the main part of the forest. In places you could
almost throw a rock from the wilderness boundary to wilderness boundary. The forest
supervisor and I were meeting with them in a meeting one night. The forest supervisor
was trying to convince them that, “Let’s just draw the boundary across that little cherry
stem and not worry about it.” And Tom would not buy it for a second. He said, “No, we
agreed on ‘x’ number of acres for the wilderness. If we cut that out we lose 5,000 acres
and we’re not willing to do that.” But he said, “It’s not manageable.” And Tom said,
“You see all those trees” (picture Green Canyon, have you been in Green Canyon? So
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�you know on that north slope as you drive up the canyon that you’ve got a cliff, some
trees, cliffs and trees, cliffs and trees as it goes up that north-facing slope.) Tom was
convinced that we were going to go cut those. I said, “Tom there’s not even any way we
can put a road up there, even if that were a possibility.” He said, “No, we don’t trust you.
You’re going to cut those so we’re not going to deal with you on this boundary change.”
It was no big deal, we didn’t push it beyond that meeting and congress passed it the way
the map was drawn and we’ve been dealing with it ever since.
It’s a little interesting because, in my opinion, wilderness should be wilderness. You
shouldn’t have a road in wilderness that Richmond city, for example, can drive their
pickup trucks over to get to a well-developed water system that’s inside the wilderness
boundary. To me that doesn’t seem wilderness-y. Or to have a road that goes so far up the
middle of it for, you know, for whatever reason. But that’s the way it was passed so I
guess that’s what we deal with.
I don’t know if it’s one of the first, but it’s one of the early wildernesses new in the 1980s
that did have those little extenuating uses allowed inside the boundary; mostly for
municipal water systems. Some miners had access to patented mining claims inside the
wilderness (not ours, but you know, others).
BC:
And then the other big issue that came along during that period was the STLA Lands?
DB:
Yeah, that came after I left.
BC:
After you left? Okay.
DB:
We were involved a little bit in the beginning. I took the Seth Allen (who was then the
Cache County – what do they call it?)
BC:
Commissioner?
DB:
No he wasn’t a commissioner. He was what Lynn Lemon, the executive –
BC:
The county executive, that’s right, yeah.
DB:
Yeah. Seth Allen was the county executive and we toured the country a few times talking
about those kinds of issues. But I left before the decisions were made to change them
around.
But you can ask – what I thought about them? [Laughing]
BC:
What did you think about them?
DB:
It’s very efficient to block up ownership so you don’t have the state sections inside the
National Forest. If you can eliminate those kinds of things it just makes management for
both agencies a lot easier. But the way it came to pass, you know, the political-ness of the
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�thing was a concern to me because the state’s objective is to use state lands to make
money; which means that if summer homes made them more money than cows then they
would develop summer homes. Or if there was a mine, some minerals, they would be a
lot more open to managing the minerals because it generated funds for whatever fund
benefited from that activity. And being in National Forest ownership I think we had a
little bit better handle on making forests, forests and not open to golf courses and you
know, more recreation cabins and so forth.
So I was a little disappointed that something different wasn’t done around Beaver
Mountain. We weren’t ever going to allow condominiums and that kind of development
to take place up there. But with the state now in control of that stuff it can be a
possibility, I’m not saying they’re thinking like that. But it’s a possibility. We wanted to
purchase that 400 acres at the mouth of that highway that goes up to Beaver Creek. On
the south side of the highway there’s 400 acres, 440 acres I think, of private ground in
there. We wanted to pick that up really bad just to keep the urbanization of Logan
Canyon to a minimum. I believe the county ordinances won’t allow much development in
there right now, but of course they can change. I just think it would be sad to drive Logan
Canyon and all of a sudden have to drive through a community, you know. That’s my
opinion.
BC:
The other thing I wondered about – it seemed like in the early 1980s is the time period
you saw a lot more women moving into the Forest Service and U.S. Wildlife Service and
stuff. Did that happen with you and how was that change accepted or?
DB:
Well it wasn’t just women, it was women and minorities and specialists. All three of
those were kind of in the same box, so to speak. I think that’s an interesting question and
my answer is probably somewhat biased.
I believe that the forester, whether it is a man or a woman or a minority, it’s not what
they were, it’s what they are: a forester. Most of the foresters in the Forest Service, range
conservationists as well, at that time were white males. It’d been 80 years getting to that
particular point and to suggest that we automatically change the agency overnight to be
this marvelous balance was 1) in my opinion, not fair to those people who’d already spent
15, 20, 30 years working and growing and learning and were most qualified for some of
the leadership positions (not in every case, but generally speaking their backgrounds
would allow them to take the next step up the ladder, so to speak). And to be replaced by
a woman or a minority that had been in the service for five or six years didn’t ever seem
fair to me. They didn’t have the experience; they didn’t have the background and so
forth. So I had some fairly strong concerns about that.
A forest supervisor came to me one day and said, “I want you to take one of your GS3
summer positions, and I want you to fill it with a minority.” And I told the supervisor I
wouldn’t do it. He’d never been told that before, I don’t think, because the look on his
face was of quite surprise. But what I had working on the Logan District at the time were
people that had been on the district for a minimum of 10 years and many had been on for
15 years. And I wasn’t about to take that kind of an experienced person and put them out
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�to pasture to tell them when they came back from whatever they were doing that they
didn’t have a summer job because I was going to put a minority in that position, I
couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. But I told the supervisor, I said, “But you watch this
district and I’ll bet you within a year we have a better percentage than any other district
on this whole forest.” Because I knew the staff was working in that direction. They were
picking up people that were qualified that would help the district succeed, not meet some
quota. And yet at the end of the year we had a higher percentage of women and
minorities working on our district than any other district on the whole forest. And we
weren’t forced into it and we didn’t wave our red flags to see how great we were
(whereas some of the other rangers were getting points for all of the attention they paid to
that). We spent our time focused on the woods. And we hired people that could help us
meet those objectives. And if a good young lady or a minority of any kind were qualified
to help us do that we sought them out and we got them and we did get them. They liked
working for the district. Then our percentages were higher than anybody else’s. And you
know what? We never got one ounce of recognition for that.
BC:
Huh. [Laughing]
DB:
But we didn’t care. That’s not what we were seeking. We knew it was the right way to
go. We knew it was the right thing to do. People needed to have opportunities to grow.
They need to start somewhere, and we were willing to give them an opportunity to start,
but it was on our terms not on somebody else’s quota. But it worked. I was really proud
of the staff and the way they went about that. We had Native Americans, we had women.
It was cool.
BC:
I had a couple of questions going back to when you went to school here at Utah State
University. Who were some of your favorite professors when you were there?
DB:
I laugh because when I started forestry school, I started in 1960, and I went one year and
I went on an LDS mission and came back in 1963. In 1960 there was Doc Daniels and
Ray Moore – the two famous professors. When I came back there was still Doc Daniels
and Ray Moore, Carl Johnson (and a few other names that I could think of but I’m not)
there; a very small faculty and not very many students. And so we got to know Doc
extremely well and we got to know Ray extremely well, really well. And then you can’t
help but thinking back on those days about those two old rascals. Yeah, they were good
guys.
Doc was harder than nails. He was a hard professor. Unless you were extremely articulate
and absolutely perfect he gave very few “A”s. But he loved us and then we respected him
a great deal too. We knew he cared about us he just wanted us to perform the levels that
we sometimes couldn’t reach! [Laughing] But Ray Moore was my advisor, I think for
most of the whole time I was in school. I got “C”s out of Doc Daniels until all of the
required subjects were over and then he taught some other classes that weren’t required
and I took them anyway because they would help us in our background. And I got “A”s
in those. He said, “If you’re dumb enough to take me after three years of silviculture” he
said, “I can’t help but give you an ‘A’!” [Laughing]
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�So anyway, those are the two guys I remember the most. There are others but those stand
out. Both have gone now too, haven’t they?
BC:
Um-hmm. What about any influential writers or books you’ve read that stand out?
DB:
Gifford Pinchot wrote a book on the Forest Service; I’ve read that book twice. That’s
probably the most influential book I’ve read about the philosophy of the Forest Service. It
focused my mind on certain principles. But other than that, you look at our text books;
they were all (let’s see I don’t even remember the name of them now. I remember the
titles but I don’t remember who the printer was). I can tell you they were red books with
the tree symbol on the front of them and they were the technical manuals that we all used
in those days. I still have some copies out in the garage somewhere I think. But as far as
books go, you know influence goes, I was more influenced by the writers of management
systems; what makes good companies good companies and what makes good leaders
good leaders – than I was by the books we were exposed to while we were in school.
I’ll tell you one story though that’s interesting to me, that helped shape some of my
background thinking too. When I graduated, as I said earlier, I spent three years in
Colorado Springs doing watershed studies basically. The Forest Service had a lot of
watershed money in those days, and I’m glad because I got hired off that money. I
walked all over Pikes Peak for three years just doing type lines around vegetative cover
types and so forth. But when I finally got back to the district I was assigned to the Dubois
District on the Shoshone National Forest. Now I was the main timber sale administrator
and I’d never administered a timber sale before let along read a timber sale contract. And
yet I was dealing with Louisiana Pacific, 50 million board feet supply lines – 12, 20, 30
million board feet timber sales – and I had no clue what was going on there. The ranger at
the time, his name was Harold Wadley, a legend in the Forest Service. That man could
get more things done than anyone I ever knew! He convinced United States Plywood and
then Champion Paper that they weren’t going to get 30 million board feet off the Dubois
District anymore, they were going to get 1.8 million board feet and they did it without
complaint. He was a marvelous guy.
I told him one day, I said, “Harold, I have never administered a timber sale.” He said,
“Doesn’t matter, I’ll tell you what to do.” He said, “You just go up to the woods and you
take your crew stick and you measure stumps.” I said, “Measure stumps?” The contract
required a stump height of 12 inches – you can’t be any higher than that, you can be
lower. And he said, “You’d be surprised what happens.” So I went up there and I kicked
the stump and I’d put my ruler by it and I’d measure it and I’d wonder on. I had no clue
as to what I was doing. But later I discovered that the skid trail lines were now straight
and on the line they were supposed to be, the roads being built where they were marked.
The loggers were dropping things so that they could skid them out without knocking all
the other trees over. And I would come back and it would be a mess and I’d start kicking
stumps again and everything would just smooth out; a wonderful lesson. I remembered
that ever since.
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�But I had marked a spruce stand one day. About 30 acres worth and this old logger had
been sawing trees for probably 50 years – asked me one day to eat lunch with him and I
said, “Sure.” After a little while he said, “Would you mind if I told you something?” And
I said, “No!” He said, “I understand exactly what you did with these spruce trees, but I
can’t cut them down. And the only way to get them to fall so that the cut off tree doesn’t
fall on somebody unexpectedly is I have to go over to this next tree. I have to cut it and
drop it into that clump of trees that you marked and knock everything down, including
the good trees. And that’s not what you want.” And I said, “No, that’s not what I want.”
(Just as a little background – spruce can grow as individual trees or sometimes they’ll
grow in clumps. And if they grow in clumps, the outside trees are all wind firm but the
inside trees aren’t. So if you cut out the outside trees the inside ones all fall down or blow
over in the wind. So I marked all the inside trees to leave the wind firm ones on the
outside. But the wind firm ones on the outside held up the trees on the inside and they
wouldn’t fall down.)
So he said to me, “Can I make a suggestion?” And I said, “Sure.” And he said, “Why
don’t you just mark the whole clump, and then don’t mark the next clump, and so forth.
And then you’ll still have that scattered tree system about here. They’ll all stand up. I can
cut the trees down, we can get them out of here and we won’t do any damage.” And I
thought to myself, “What a marvelous idea!” I’d never thought of that. And so that’s
what we did and it worked out fine.
Six months later from Colorado State University the main Forest Service researcher in
Engelmann Spruce management came out with what was a brilliantly written marking
guides for Engelmann Spruce. And guess what his suggestion was for clumpy spruce?
Almost word for word with what that old man told me.
BC:
[Laughing] Maybe he talked to the same guy!
DB:
I don’t know! But I learned a great lesson from that old man. You know, there are people
around here that know a lot more than you do, even though they haven’t been to college
and you would do well to listen to them. That set my thinking about listening to the
public too, in that point in time.
BC:
Um-hmm.
DB:
One short, other example. In Logan Canyon at Rick Springs, we used to have a flush
toilet there. It was a big pain in the neck because the water system wouldn’t deliver
reliable water supply. So it was always shut down and then people were relieving
themselves in front of the doors and behind it, you know. It was just a stinky mess. And
so the engineers came back to us and said, “Well, your water system doesn’t meet state
standards and so we’re going to spend $75,000 to put a new water system in.” And I said,
“You’re going to what?!” $75,000 of the taxpayers’ money to put an inch, basically
inside diameter water supply to an outhouse that is broken down more than it functions! I
said, “I don’t think we should do that.” Well the engineers thought that was their decision
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�and not mine. I told them, “No it’s not your decision, it’s the district’s decision and we
don’t necessarily think that’s what you ought to do.”
So I went up there one day to ask the public what they thought. “If we tore that toilet
out,” was the question, “what would be your response?” And the only two people in that
parking lot were two ladies laying on top of their car sunbathing, scantily clothed. The
kid with me said, “You’re not going to go up and ask them that question, are you?” I said,
“Certainly I am!” So I went up there and I knocked on the side of the door and of course
they jumped up startled and looked at me and I had my uniform on and stuff and they
said, “Uh, what did we do?” “Well you didn’t do anything; I just want to ask you a
question.” So I asked them the question. And there in all of their suntan glory said, “No,
we don’t think you ought to do that. It seems like it’s too much money for what it’s
worth.” So we asked a few other people around. Most of the local don’t use that. What it
was used mostly by were the bus companies on tour from Salt Lake, or wherever they’re
coming from, going over to Bear Lake and then on over to Yellowstone. That was just a
stop. So we didn’t ask them, but we tore it out anyway and we never heard a word and we
never spent $75,000 of the taxpayers’ money putting in a water system that probably
wouldn’t work anyway.
Anyway, so that’s kind of the way we managed the district. We went out and asked and if
somebody had a better idea than we did we would implement the idea. And it really
confused people. They didn’t think that a government agency would listen to anybody but
we tried really hard to do so.
BC:
One quick question on the fellows name Wadley? How do you spell that?
DB:
Harold Wadley was W-A-D-L-E-Y I think was the way they spelled it. Wadley.
BC:
Okay. That will help when we transcribe it.
DB:
Yeah. He was an interesting guy. He was a super patriot! Took leaves of absence and
fought in Korea and then in Vietnam. And he was wounded badly in Vietnam but it still
never slowed him down any. He couldn’t raise his (I don’t remember which arm it was),
he loved to hunt, but he couldn’t raise a gun up anymore so he shot it from the hip!
[Laughing]
BC:
And then somebody had mentioned that you were involved in trying to have some of the
summer home leases pulled, or?
DB:
Yeah. When I got here – not generally the whole bunch, but when I arrived in 1984 a
cabin at what we call Red Bridge (which is half way between Stokes’ Nature Center and
Second Dam, there was a cabin at Red Bridge). Now the kids use it – there’s a big rock
behind where the cabin was and they use it to rock climb and practice on it now. But it
was owned by a guy by the name of Chase Peterson from Tremonton. And ten years
before I got here Chase had signed an agreement that he would give up his rights to the
cabin. It was in the wrong place. You know that trail went right through his front door
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�almost, that’s up there now, and the public and he were having a few problems and so
forth. He agreed to give it up. So I happen to arrive the spring that the ten years were up.
So the decision had already been made to take it out. But Chase didn’t think that the
Forest Service would go through with it. I don’t know if I was being unreasonable or not,
but I mean he agreed and so we said we were going to take it out and there was no room
to renew it. So come June or July that year he was supposed to go, he wouldn’t go. He
was supposed to go, he wouldn’t go. He went to the Regional Forestry, went to the Forest
Supervisor. Bless the hearts of those two men, they backed up the district’s decision. So
Logan City was fussing with their water line at the time and agreed to take a ‘dozer up
there and knock it over and put it in a dump truck and take it out to the dump. The day
we’d planned to do that Chase shows up and stands in front of the bulldozer. I mean he’s
an older guy!
BC:
Yeah.
DB:
So we went up there to try and negotiate the situation. Of course he’d called the
newspaper and the newspaper was there. I believe they had a picture of me standing on
the guard rail with one foot up on the guard rail and my head hung down like this and
Chase jabbering in the background. Eventually we tore it down that day and it left and so
did he, and that was the end of the controversy.
The summer home issue and the Forest Service is interesting in my opinion. Way back in
our history there was a fairly political debate as to who should be the recreation supplier
in the country: the Park Service or the Forest Service. The Secretary of Interior wanted
the National Forest for recreation and of course the Secretary of Agriculture wanted the
National Forest for the multiple uses that it was supposed to provide.
And so in order to compete with the Park Service, the Forest Service got in the recreation
business. We built campgrounds and summer homes were one of the recreational uses
that were permitted on the forest at that time. A number of National Forests across the
west especially have summer home groups, some have many of them (like we do in
Logan Canyon, you know, not top to bottom but there are several summer home groups
in there). That’s where they came from. Their fees were very minimal. They were only
recreation cabins; they couldn’t establish a residency in them, etc., etc. Although over the
years many have tried. But as government has seen in our lifetime experiences, different
ways they can make money, they’re looking at summer home groups to say, “Well, their
fees are way below market value and so we’re going to raise them up.” And every time
that comes it causes a major controversy. They go to the congressman, the congressman
come down and beat on the Forest Service, you know, it’s like rabbits. They go through
this cycle where there are a lot of them and then it’s quiet for a while and then there’s a
lot more of them. That seems to be what’s happening with the summer home group. It
gets controversial and then it cools off, then it gets controversial, but it’s almost always
over the fee or some of the tendency of the some of the permittees to want to make
certain improvements to their properties and make them a little bit more urban than they
were designed to be.
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�But Chase is the only one that we actually terminated. [Laughing]
BC:
How do you see the future of the Forest Service?
DB:
Oh, I wish I didn’t have to answer that question!
Again, I grew up at the tail end of its glory, in my opinion. But I’ve seen the policies in
the Forest Service become more complex and more of them, more rules, more
regulations. Not necessarily coming from congress either. I see people in positions that I
don’t think ought to be in the positions they’re in because of egos, because of power, you
know. The things that people seek high positions for sometimes. I don’t see us spending
as much time on the ground as we ought to be spending. We’re spending way too much
time in political issues, at least some of the folks are. And I don’t see a bright future for
the Forest Service. I wouldn’t be surprised in five, ten years there isn’t a Forest Service
anymore. There will be some kind of gigantic agency that manages all of the, you know
the natural resources: parks, wildlife refuges, forests, you know, BLM lands all in the
same agency. And I’m going to be one of the firsts that would say it’s not going to work
effectively for the good of the American public. I think it will be a very bureaucratic kind
of thing, like many government agencies are, and I don’t think it will serve the public like
the agencies in the past have. People can accuse me of being an old thinker, I don’t care. I
have seen too many evidences where that kind of thinking does not work.
I can give you a couple of examples if you want to take the time to listen to them.
BC:
Sure.
DB:
The average ranger district, for example, even say 1984, consisted of regular staff but it
had what we called a business management assistant. It was a well-trained, usually a
lady, that managed the business of the district. She did the hiring, she paid many of the
bills, she had access to a fund where we could take and go down to the hardware store
and buy a hammer and nails if we needed to do that kind of stuff. It was very efficient;
the store owners got paid in a timely way. She completed all the paperwork that needed
to be done; some required a forest supervisor’s signature – she’d get it all ready, send it in
and manage that process. We hired our own people on the district. We could pick the best
workers because we knew who they were. We hired a lot of farm and ranch kids because
we knew they knew how to work and they loved outside, you know, the land and so to
speak. But gradually over the years all of those responsibilities that that business
management person has changed from being able to complete the work, to just being the
pusher of the paper. In other words they can fill out the form but somebody somewhere
up the line has to approve it.
I don’t know how many years ago it was; probably eight, nine, ten years ago, for
example, the personnel business that we were all involved in at one time became a central
organization. It’s in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Try to hire a person from a person who
is doing the approval in Albuquerque, New Mexico – obviously it takes a long time. And
it does. We would hire, for example, (I don’t know if this means anything) a GS3 (basic
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�clerical position). That person would blossom in that particular job to where they were
worthy of a higher pay. And at one time we could generate a higher pay to pay for their
value without any problem at all – well, a little problem – but not a major problem. Now
days, if I understand what I hear people talking about around the Forest Service that I
keep in contact with, it’s a major operation to get it done IF it comes to pass in the first
place. You have people saying, “We didn’t hire them for their brains, we hired them for
their hands! All they’re supposed to do is know how to type!” But this lady is calling
Yellowstone National Park to find out if a campground is open or if a road is open so
they don’t drive 200 miles and find that everything’s closed. She thought about that
herself. You know, people walk out of the office with smiles on their faces because they
don’t get the buck passed. “That doesn’t matter. We only hired her for her fingers. She’s
not supposed to think.” It’s that kind of stuff that drove me nuts, you know.
Last example: when I worked in the regional office, I knew I didn’t want to go to the
regional office; I really knew I didn’t want to go there. I went there anyway. I went there
because my boss wanted to have a forest planner as a district ranger and not a district
ranger in the woods. So she arranged a transfer for me to the regional office. I worked in
state and private forestry there for a long time and our boss was in Missoula [Montana]
(because they combined our two offices) and he wasn’t always in Ogden and so I would
go to meetings for him once in a while.
I went to a meeting where the regional forester’s staff – and when we called them staff
officers that meant something, but when they changed their name to “board of directors”
they lost the whole confidence of the Forest Service. But they didn’t see that. Board of
Directors; that means you’re elevating yourself above everybody else. They said, “Yeah.
We make all the decisions. You don’t do anything unless we make the decision.” I
thought weird. Anyway, I struggled with that name. We went to this meeting and they
had been talking for months about ten or so issues that were affecting the region. And at
this meeting they were going to talk about these. I thought this was interesting.
So I went to the meeting and they started to read down this list of all ten items. And,
Brad, this was really interesting. They were talking about stuff that we’d talked about 20
years before, honest! I went to meetings as an assistant ranger and as a zone manager –
which was the same thing as a ranger on the Sawtooth – where we talked about these
same issues in 1981 and 1982. The list, I put them in my drawer. And then sometime in
about the [19]‘70s we went through a program called “Choosing by Advantages” and
“Management by Objectives” and “Total Quality Management” – we went through all of
those kinds of things and developed issues and they’re exactly the same as we did in
1982! And when I saw those listed on the door, I thought, “Those look familiar to me.”
And I looked on my list and they were almost word for word to the stuff we developed in
1982 and nothing had been done about them. Nothing! And they were things that the
regional forester’s office probably ought to be working on because they had the authority
to make these changes, and yet nothing had ever happened. And I thought, “That’s
incredible.”
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�And I’m sitting there listening, listening, listening and they got down to the last end and
then the guy moderating the meeting said, “Very good! We’ve all done really good work
now the meeting is over!” And before they could get up out of their chairs I raised my
hand and I said, “Wait a minute.” I said, “All of these issues are really, really cool. And
they’re really important, but when are you going to do anything about them?” The room
went dead silent. And I knew I’d said the wrong thing because I’m only a GS12 talking to
GS13s, 14s, and 15s! And then one of them said, “I don’t think we’re so bad, why we
worked really well together on this!” (They had retreats where they went away, you know
for themselves, and did all of this.) And that ended the meeting. And I actually went out
of that meeting a little sick to my stomach because I couldn’t believe that this level of
intelligence would be so naïve to think that was their original thought – it wasn’t! We
thought about that in 1981 and ’82 and you know, a few other times during the year. So I
stayed on for another couple of years before I retired, so it must’ve been in about 1998.
And you know, until that very day that I walked out of the office nothing had been done
about those ten issues -- nothing.
BC:
Hmm. Amazing.
DB:
So, to answer your question shortly: no, I think the Forest Service has changed. I feel bad
that it has. I just don’t think they’re going to be as effective as they had in the past with
the policies and the way they manage people now and all those kinds of things – I don’t
think they can get back to the way it was. It’s too political in my opinion. We’re too
much focused in on environmental documentations and documents which I don’t think
the law requires us to be that intense, but we are. I don’t see rangers in the woods a lot. I
see them at meetings, but not in the woods. I see their staff in the woods, but then the
disconnect is between quality and ideas: this person is doing their own thing, the ranger’s
going to meetings all the time. But where is the district going? I have a hard time
sometimes seeing where that is going.
What we did on the Logan District that made Logan Canyon and everything else work is,
like I told you earlier, our campgrounds were in really bad shape. So what are you going
to do with a budget that’s static to get from a really bad level of maintenance to a level
that you’re proud to invite the public to come out to see? How are you going to do that?
Well I told my staff that it wasn’t painting one table at a time in a campground! And then
I asked the question, “How are you painting the tables?” “We’re painting them with a
four inch paint brush and a gallon can of paint.” Well if you’ve painted a little bit of your
house you know that’s slow. There are faster ways to do that. So I just asked a dumb
question, “Why don’t you buy a commercial paint sprayer and spray the whole
campground at once? You could spray the whole campground in the time it takes you to
paint one table and drive 20 miles to paint the second table. In other words you can do a
whole campground in a day.” We only have 12 campgrounds. You could get all 12 of
them done in 12 days if you had the resources to do it. Well we didn’t have the resources
to do all 12 of them, but we had a little bit to do some. So they went out and bought a
$300 and some odd paint sprayer and sprayed all the campgrounds lickety split. They
started to look pretty well, we didn’t increase our budget any.
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�A group of people – the city forester in Salt Lake City – was planting thousands of trees
across these parks in Salt Lake City for pennies. How does he do it? He’s hiring the high
school football team. He’s paying them $500-$1,000 to plant 10,000 trees (which if you
contracted it would be close to $10,000, you know). So for $500-$1,000 he’s getting all
of this work done. What’s in it for the football team? Well they need money for pads and
for helmets and for special equipment that the school district isn’t funding them for.
Loved it! You get these big, husky kids out there digging holes fast – so why don’t we try
that?
Our campground grates, for example, they were all broken apart. We were replacing them
one at a time with metal ring fireplaces, which is a pretty good deal but we weren’t
making any progress. So why don’t we hire a football team to come and do it? So we did.
We brought Skyview’s High School football team to come in and do it. We paid them
$1,000. They replaced almost all of our campground rings in Logan Canyon in a very
short period of time. Saved us thousands of dollars and yet got our campgrounds up to
one more level for just pennies.
BC:
Um-hmm.
DB:
That worked out really well. We did it again and again. And they came with their own
supervision; they came with their busses. We didn’t have to pay for anything except for
that little fee we agreed to. They bought helmets – it worked out perfectly for them.
So how are we going to take care of the litter problem? Because that really bothered me.
The crews would go through a campground and they would pick up stuff and within a
day it looked like they’d never been there. A really sad thing for Cache Valley because I
thought people would be much more sensitive than they were. I was disappointed in that.
But how are we going to do it because we’re not going to get any more money to get any
more people to pick up garbage? Do you know the name of Don Yonker?
BC:
I know some Yonkers out in –
DB:
Gordon. You know Gordon Yonker?
BC:
Yeah.
DB:
But Don Yonker is an older man now. He owned a bunch of land up against the mountain
in North Logan, but north of Green Canyon. Don was a scouter and he came into the
office one day he was concerned a little bit, as I was, that Eagle projects were being
refused on the district right and left. And I couldn’t understand why we kept turning away
free help.
BC:
Um-hmm
DB:
“Well, we don’t have time to go out and set up the project. We don’t have time to do this
and that.” In a way that’s a legitimate – but not really – because you know, we could take
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�the time if we wanted to. What were we doing that was more important? Probably
nothing. But Don walked in the office one day and he said, “I’ll help you manage that
program.” He said, “I’ll help supervise the Boy Scouts.” And so the next Boy Scout that
came in wanting an Eagle project, we said, “Yes.” And then we got more, and we got
more and we got more and pretty soon Don was managing a whole bunch of Eagle
projects. They were out doing a quarter mile of trail here, and you know, a half a mile
here; picking up here; doing all kinds of stuff. We got ourselves up one more little notch.
Actually we were having a little bit of pressure about using more volunteers on the
district, you know, because it was a political thing to do. We got points for doing that.
But we didn’t want to do it just because we got points. We needed help. So we instituted
– at the time Lady Bird Johnson had the “Take Pride in America” program – and we kind
of spun in behind that and we said to the public through different means, “We need some
help, folks, picking up in the canyons.” We got so many volunteers that we could have a
family go pick up a campground once a week, to be backed up by another family and
another family and another family; so we were actually getting things picked up really a
lot. Every trail, every road, every campground had numerous families that had signed up
to go pick up litter. And we went up another notch. I mean the forest started to look really
nice. The problem was still there, but it was getting picked up on a regular basis.
The district went back to Washington D.C. four times in a row and they won the top
honors for that category in “Take Pride in America” just because of the work of Don and
couple of his replacements and some other folks on the district that, you know, dedicated
a little time and energy to that program. It was a wonderful program. It did wonders for
the district, and here our budget’s not increased one dollar. But you know what happened
from all of that is, is that people in the forest supervisor’s office and elsewhere began to
see that Logan District knows where to spend money because we did. If we had extra trail
money we knew what trail we wanted to put it on. If we got an Eagle project we knew
where we wanted to put it, it wasn’t a guess, because we’d done some planning that way.
So they would come in, we’d say, “Sure. You’re going to go to that trail and do this
much.” And they’d go do it. And we’d just add, add, add, and the trail gets maintained
and it was perfect.
And so that’s what we did. And yet those folks began to say, “Wait a minute. They’re not
just throwing money away.” No we’re not. We know where we’re going with it. So we
got grants like $30,000 came in from this fund; and $40,000 from this and $10,000 from
this and $5,000 from this because they knew we knew where to spend it. And we did –
we spent it where we needed to spend it. And so the district took a way heavy step that
way. We figured it would take us 15 years at our existing budget in Logan Canyon and
the whole district in general to get all of our campgrounds up to a standard that we
thought was acceptable. And we almost got there in eight years because of the extra
money.
Now why do I think the Forest Service is struggling a little bit? Because that’s all
undone.
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�BC:
Yeah.
DB:
We’re not there anymore and we’re not making the kind of progress that was made in
those years. I’m not claiming credit for it. I got to sit back and put my feet up on the desk
and smile. But the staff guys that were doing the work were just doing a marvelous job
and it was working really well.
When I left (I better be careful how I say this). When I left, I predicted that it would be
within, oh at least as short as a year and perhaps two or three years that the district would
be almost back in the same condition it was before we started all this stuff, and I’ve pretty
well come close to that prediction. And I’m not boasting about that, you know.
All I contributed to all of this stuff that went on in the forest was I said that we had to
produce the highest money can buy and we’re not going to be functional. The fire crew
can’t have their separate vehicles and their separate tools from the range crew, from the
trail crew – we’re all part of the same district. It took about four years to get that mindset
into people’s heads. And what that did when they got there, when they finally figured out
that somebody cared about what they did, they acted together. The trail crew driving
down the road would see a crooked sign they would stop and straighten it up instead of
just drive past it saying, “That’s not my job, that’s the recreation guy’s job.” The
recreation crew, if they saw cows where they weren’t supposed to be they didn’t think,
they would tell the range folks that, “There are cows over here.” And the information
flowed around the district. If a sign was missing, if they didn’t have it in their pickup
truck, they put in there and put it up the next day. It wasn’t their job, but they were going
that way. So they started all working together, they started to coordinate together a little
bit. They authorized “fire personnel only” signs came down; locks went off the cabinets.
We all contributed to the tool supply instead of each one of the groups having to horde
their own things. It was really cool; but that all disappeared within two years after.
I kept it going; I would admit that I preached like a preacher never preached before on
that concept. Like I said, it took four to five years to get everybody agreeing that that’s
what we were going to do and working together. But without that preaching it went away
in a short period of time. I feel bad about that. I try not to get involved with the Forest
Service today because I know, number one I would be disappointed; I would get sort of
angry. I feel sorry for where they’re all at, I really, really do. But I don’t know if they’ll
ever recover from, you know from the bureaucratic box they seem to have built about
themselves.
I think we could’ve had diversity; I think we could’ve had – not only in people, but in
occupations and skills – if we would have just lead and exercised some leadership in
there. I could go forever and ever you know. I have a real passion about this.
One of the major mistakes a good company does that causes a failure in a program almost
every time, is when you get a leader that stands up there and preaches the greatness of
this new thing that you’re going to try and do and then the next day assigns it to a staff
group to implement. It will never work, I don’t care how good the idea is, in a hundred
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�years it will never work! For one, the staff guy doesn’t have the authority to do
everything that needs to be done; for one it’s not his idea, it was just given to him; for
another the boss sometimes won’t give him the autonomy they need to go make it work.
And for those reasons it will not work. That’s what the Forest Service has done in many
of these things that are good ideas that we’ve tried to implement, but almost every case
they delegated it to a staff person to implement. I knew that when I came to the district
and I would not do that; I would not delegate the responsibility of creating that
management picture. I couldn’t do it because I knew it would fail; and it did when I left. I
knew it would because the other rangers – good people as they are (and they’re good
people) – had a different way they want to manage. They didn’t want to manage that way.
But they’re not making as much progress as we were making either, that’s the only boast
I’ll make.
BC:
Um-hmm. Yeah.
DB:
There are several writers (and I don’t remember all their names), but their writings are all
classically the same: you manage people this way and you do these things a certain way,
this is what good companies do and you’ll succeed. And I read their books, over and over
and over again. I tried to do that on the district. And I believe they were right. I really do.
I believe they were right; because we made progress.
BC:
I always like to end with the question, if you could go back and change anything about
your career and your life, would you?
DB:
If the conditions of the day I started with the Forest Service were true today I would do it
over without hesitation.
BC:
Um-hmm.
DB:
I still love being a forester. I still love being called a forester. I still smell pine scent on
the breeze when I think about it enough, you know. I love the woods and what it
represents. I see the woods being different than what the politicians see it. It’s not just a
money making kind of thing, but there’s a whole organism out there that requires – in our
day and age – some attention. We call it “management.” In the old days when the Indians
set fires to burn holes in timber so they could put their horses in there, or to bring the elk
and deer and bighorn sheep and that sort of thing, down into the openings (because they
really were attracted to those); the lightening things that burn for months and months in
the summertime and all that fire influence, in the West anyway, had a major influence on
what the vegetative types, mosaics and all those kinds of things developed around. And
each stage in their development benefited something else at that particular point in time.
Unlike what the environmentalists wished would happen – that we do nothing to the
woods – is not wise because the end result of all this vegetative development on its own,
without any influences turning it back one way or the other (you take fire out of the
system, if you take the bugs out of the system, and so forth), you end up with a pure stand
of some old tree that has litter on the ground this deep with very little ground vegetation
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�and therefore, not much to offer for the other varieties of – the wildlife and birds and so
forth that call that home. The biomass itself might be high in vegetative types, but animal
wise and the other kinds of critters that you normally think to find there, aren’t there
because their habitat is not there. So I don’t know, for whatever wisdom you know, fire
kept things in different stages scattered about the countryside and the re-development of
the vegetative type’s history back up toward its climax – kept things in variety.
Well in 1905 when the Forest Service thought – it was even true when I graduated from
college – that fire, insects and disease were the enemy of the woods! And we had to do
whatever we could to minimize those things. If you’re talking pure timber, that’s the
concern of course, because that’s where the value of whatever your product is. But if
you’re talking about ecosystems, that’s not wise because the periodic disruption in the
community is what keeps it viable and the variety there. And so I always thought in my
scheme, the land needs to be managed and it needs to be wisely managed. People need to
use it but they can’t abuse it. You can cut some trees but you can’t cut too many of them;
you can graze some cows, but you can’t graze too many of them, and so forth. If you
were able to strike that balance in being able to manage a district like that, or even a
forest like that, that the benefits to both the landscape and to the user of the landscape
would be about as good as you could do it. If we could do that, then this job would be
very, very interesting to continue on with it. It really would.
But knowing what I know today and knowing what the Forest Service is like today –
would I do it again? I would think about that a little bit harder. I don’t know what I would
do different but I would would think about it a little bit harder. I think I would be a
specialist and get away from the politics. I am really interested in fire and spent a lot of
time in that particular box and I would easily want to become as expert as I could ever be
in the whole fire management issue. I could find some joy and happiness in doing that,
but not leading it. Again because of the politics and policies that seem to be controlling
everything in ways I wish it wouldn’t.
BC:
Um-hmm. Alright, well thank you very much Dave, for –
DB:
Did I talk too much?
BC:
No, it was great! And we could probably go on for a long time.
DB:
Yeah, I can get real passionate about management. I really, really can.
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�
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Dave Baumgartner interview, 5 May 2008, and transcription
Description
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The interview contains information on the childhood, education and the career of Dave Baumgartner as a forester, the various positions held within the Forest Service and his views on management. There are many anecdotes from his personal experiences in managing in the Logan Canyon and Logan District of the Forest Service, including his attitudes regarding the road expansion up Logan Canyon and his idea to include land users when making decisions.
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Baumgartner, Dave, 1942-
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Cole, Bradford R.
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United States. Forest Service
United States. Forest Service--Officials and employees
Foresters--Interviews
Baumgartner, Dave, 1942---Interviews
Baumgartner, Dave, 1942---Family
Baumgartner, Dave, 1942---Career in Forestry
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Roads--Utah--Logan Canyon--Design and construction
Roads--Environmental aspects--Utah--Logan Canyon
Recreation--Utah--Logan Canyon
Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest (Agency : U.S.). Logan Ranger District--Public relations
Utah. Dept. of Transportation--Public relations
Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest (Agency : U.S.). Logan Ranger District--Management
Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest (Agency : U.S.). Logan Ranger District--Travel
Environmental protection--Utah--Logan Canyon
Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest (Agency : U.S.). Logan Ranger District--Officials and employees
Volunteer workers in camp sites, facilities, etc.--Utah--Logan Canyon
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Oral history
Interviews
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Logan Canyon (Utah)
Salt Lake City (Utah)
Utah
Cache County (Utah)
Salt Lake County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Lewiston (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999
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2000-2009
21st century
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eng
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 2 Fd. 3
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Inventory for the Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection can be found at: <a href="http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php">http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php</a>
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of the USU Fife Folklore Archives Curator, phone (435) 797-3493
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Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection
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FolkColl42bx2fd3DaveBaumgartner
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5 May 2008
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2008-05-05
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Logan Canyon Reflections
-
http://highway89.org/files/original/6c0494b3102cbdb8ac9feef5c11a1070.mp3
1eda16ac17d7fc51187ea7bd5dee80b6
http://highway89.org/files/original/790e78acba7c8721b35f2fb27b213c3a.pdf
06eda37c1313d5ef77ccc9238375a4d7
PDF Text
Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
John Neuhold
Place of Interview: John’s home in Logan UT
Date of Interview: April 11, 2008
Interviewer: Lyra Hilliard
Recordist:
Lyra Hilliard
Recording Equipment:
Marantz PMD660 Digital Recorder
Transcription Equipment used:
Express Scribe Transcription Software
Transcribed by: Glenda Nesbit
Transcript Proofed by: Elaine Thatcher, Randy Williams (2011) and John Neuhold
(July 2011)
Brief Description of Contents: personal background, but mostly his professional life
and education, his mentors, his work in Wisconsin, but mostly in Utah, including project
with the Deseret Livestock Company (intensive grazing), working with fisheries, dealing
with impact of various activities on rivers, including the construction on US Highway 89
through Logan Canyon, development of departments in Natural Resources at USU and
politics of natural resource management and the legislature. The interview also references
to the Mossbacks group of retired natural scientists. Work creating and work as first
director of USU Ecology Center and participation in the Utah Democratic Party.
Reference:
JN = John Neuhold
LH = Lyra Hilliard (USU graduate student)
NOTE:
Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and
starts and stops in conversations are not included in transcript. All
additions to transcript are noted with brackets. Tracks 1-3 are preliminary
to the interview, sound testing, etc., and not transcribed.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
LH:
This is Lyra Hilliard with the Logan Canyon Use and Management Oral History
Project. And we are here with…
JN:
My full name is Matthias Johann Werchnig Neuhold –it is different—A KA John
M. Neuhold. I was born at an address on Cherry Street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
on May 18, 1928, my mother’s birthday. Both my mother and father were
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�immigrants from Austria and they came to this country right after World War I.
And shortly after that I was born.
My earliest memory of Logan Canyon is when I came out here and I left the
University of Wisconsin to come out here to attend the, then, the School of Forest,
Range, and Wildlife Management. I drove down Logan Canyon with two friends,
Ed Harvey and Gene Holenstein. Ed was from Milwaukee and Gene was from
Rice Lake, Wisconsin. And it was on June 11th we came down from Milwaukee
with our jaws agape because we were just absolutely fascinated by the scenery.
We had come across the United States on US 30, Highway 30, the Lincoln
Highway, and deviated from it to 30 North and crossed into Utah. What was then
basically a dirt road came down Low Canyon. Saw Bear Lake again, we were
astounded and then climbed the mountain and came down Logan Canyon and
found lodging on 4th North. And in the morning when we got up there was four
inches of snow on the highway on June 12th.
My family’s land use traditions really started with my grandfathers, both by
grandfathers, who were game keepers in Austria. And my maternal grandfather
had a farm in a valley called the Valley of the Gailtal, Austria, and worked for one
of the estates. At that time it was still a royal estate. And he was a game keeper
for the royal estate. My other grandfather was killed in a mountain climbing
accident when he was serving as a game keeper; he was killed on Mt. Dobratz in
southern Austria, which is right on the Italian border actually.
The land use traditions actually continued although. My father got work as a
construction worker in the Milwaukee area. He loved to hunt and fish and the
family always was out on weekends or when he had vacations. Why, we took off
into northern Wisconsin and out there. And of course as I grew older I was farmed
out and began to work as a farm hand in southeastern Wisconsin on several
different farms.
I came out here as a student from the University of Wisconsin in the area of, I
thought initially, as forestry. And then began to deviate from that into the wildlife
area and gained my degrees in Wildlife Management, Fishery Management and
then finally Aquatic Toxicology. My Ph.D. was in Aquatic Toxicology.
My hobbies and recreational pursuits followed my father’s lead and that was
basically hunting and fishing, expanding into such things as skiing, outdoor
hiking and basically just taking advantage of the outdoors. I’m an outdoor person.
Let’s see we got through the professional part of it.
LH:
So that first day that you drove through Logan Canyon, that June 11th, coming
here to, as a transfer student, to go to school.
JN:
Uh hum.
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�LH:
Were the other two people with you?
JN:
Yeah.
LH:
They also were students?
JN:
Yeah. They were students. Yes. We came out here, at that time the School of
Forest, Range and Wildlife Management. We didn’t have a college at that time.
This was still called the Utah State Agricultural College. It was still called the
Utah State Agricultural College at the time. And that was in 1950. The students
that were present, we came out here to attend summer camp which was held up
Logan Canyon, where I became introduced to a variety of things.
I should point out that before I left University of Wisconsin, my mentor or
professor at the University of Wisconsin was one Phillip Whitford who was a
student of Curtis’s and whose area was ecology – plant ecology. And I worked for
him; I took classes from him of course. But then I also worked for him doing a lot
of forest surveying, identifying trees in the winter time. He was laying out
basically plots for forest growth, woodlots and farms and that in southeastern
Wisconsin. And my job was there was basically to go out and identify trees and
plot areas and measure the sizes of the trees and so on. And we were doing that
winter and summer. So I became very adept at identifying the vegetation in
southern Wisconsin. But I came out here in the summer camp. We of course were
introduced to the plants out in this area. Most of which I knew so that was not
much of a problem. And that was really a very interesting time for me.
Then when I was out here after summer camp, Dr. Ted Daniels and Ray Moore
hired me, along with Sam Jackson and Sterling Rickman, to do some plot layout
work for them on the school forest. And again their concerns up there was looking
at forest growth and the way we did that was basically to lay out the plots along a
line that we used with a chain, that we measured with a chain. And then identified
the trees at the end of, I think it was a hundred meter chain. Yeah, it was a
hundred meters. We identified the trees in that particular area. Measured them,
took their DBHs. That is diameter-breast height-and estimated the height of the
trees and the species of the trees in the area. That was my introduction to the
forest part of the area.
And then I got into the wildlife management. That’s where I did my Bachelor’s
degree was a matter of two more years of training in that area. And then my
Master’s degree was in fishery management. And then I went to work for the
State of Utah Fish and Game Department at that time. And I had, I was hired by
the Assistant Federal Aid Coordinator: Jay Udy in Salt Lake City, along with Bill
McConnell who was a fellow student of mine. And we were put to work. We,
basically what we did was design and implement the Stream and Lake Survey in
the state. And that was really a marvelous experience for me because I went to
work with crews. We hired crews. Most of the work was in the summertime when
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�we could hire students to help us work on the statewide lake survey, part of it. But
it took us into every corner of the state. And our procedures were basically to do
sections of streams and lakes. We used electro fishing to find out what kind of
fish were present in the streams and we used nets in the various lakes and
reservoirs to identify the lakes. And it was the first time that an inventory was
taken of lakes and streams in the state. The most interesting part of that, well there
was a lot of interesting parts to it really. One was getting acquainted with the rural
part of Utah and the people living in those areas, which was really quite
interesting. The area, the people there, of course, were mostly all Mormons and
part of the culture, but unlike the . . . let’s say they were not as rigorous down
there as they were up here in Cache Valley or in Utah County. It was . . . you
could have fun with them. It seemed that the higher in the mountains they got, the
less strict they became.
It was something that . . . actually it was a comment that was made by Frazier
Darley who happened to be a British, English ecologist who made a tour of this
country. And when he got to Utah he was hosted by three of the state’s worst
reprobates: Lee Kay from the Fish and Game Department, Rasmussen from US
Forest Service, and Art Smith from the Utah State faculty. They guided him
around the town and he’s the guy that made the comment that he recognized that
he understood that the Mormons were strict teetotalers, but it seemed that the
higher in the mountains they went the less strict they became, and out came the
bottles. I worked with all three of those guys and they were a lot of fun. They
were all Mormons but they were backsliders basically.
LH:
So you were talking mostly down in the southern part of the state?
JN:
Oh all over the state.
LH:
All over the state.
JN:
Yeah, all over the state. We, I was with the Department for a four year period and
during which time I had finished my Master’s degree and I led that Stream and
Lake Survey for a four year period and then when I left it was taken over by
another student of mine who at that time was working for the State of
Washington. Albert Regenthall, who happened to be from New Jersey, he took
over my position here and then the other fellow that took over was Don Andriano
who was also a former student, and a fellow student, who happened to be from
Iowa originally. And he became the Chief of Fisheries here in the state where
Albert became kind of all, basically in the waterfowl area. After my four years
with the Fish and Game Department I came back to the University and did, I did
my work on my Ph.D. and finished that up in a two year period, after which the
University hired me as an Assistant Professor in 1958. And I’ve been with the
University ever since that time.
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�A lot of the work that I did with my students was done in on the forest. A good
deal of it was done in Logan Canyon on the Logan River. And it, well, it dealt
mostly with fishery management questions and aquatic ecology in the river. And
since my doctorate was in aquatic toxicology I did a lot of work with basically
testing the various species that we had in the area for their susceptibility to the
various different kinds of toxins. We did have at that time a lot of fluorides being
emitted to the environment by the steel mills down in Utah County and by the
phosphate fertilizer plants up in the southern part of Idaho. And a lot of the
fluorides would be part of the stack emissions which would settle down on the
watersheds and then when we did have a freshet come on through, a rain storm of
one sort or another was washed into the rivers and we’d suddenly find a lot of fish
kills. And so we tracked those questions down quite a bit. That led on to quite a
lot of work. I should maybe continue on.
A group of us got together on the campus, all faculty, and began to discuss the
things that we had in common relating to the ecology of the area. So we had
people from agriculture, and people from the, by this time we were a university so
it was the College of Agriculture and the College of Science and College of
Natural Resources. All the faculty that were involved in these lunch meetings
were ecologists or were working in ecological areas. And from that stemmed the
concept that what we needed on the campus was a thrust in ecology. So we made
a proposal to the State Legislature and to the National Science Foundation to
create an ecology program.
Initially it was the Center of Excellence in Ecology. We did have what we
considered to be a sizeable group of people that worked in the area, in all aspects
of the area, autecology and synecology. And felt that we deserved recognition as a
center. Well, the National Science Foundation didn’t consider us quite that good
yet. However, they suggested that we apply for a departmental program in
ecology, which we did. And we won that. And the same time the state allocated to
us a biennial sum of continuing support in, I think it amounted to $200,000 per a
biennium: $100,000 a year which was matched then by the National Science
Foundation. We created the Ecology Center here. And I was named the first
director of it.
And as a director of it I got into a wide variety of things. Obviously one of the
things that I was mostly concerned with was trying to build expertise that we did
lack in the area. So I managed to talk David Goodall, an Australian ecologist who
was at that time at Riverside, California, at the University of California at
Riverside, to come to this campus and with the monies that we had built the
faculty portion of the program.
We were successful then in obtaining a big grant from the National Science
Foundation in the International Biological Program. And our program here was
desert ecology. So we basically built the consortium of universities from
California, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho, and Utah. We had some 60 different
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�faculty members involved at these institutions. And the program was a multimillion dollar program and that’s, we started off with that. And it was a very
successful program. And we made a pretty good name for ourselves in this area.
The Ecology Center persists and it’s under, it’s now under the direction of Jim
McMahon who is the Director and who is also working to get a program that’s
dealing with, basically dealing with mapping and changing ecological structures
in the United States, or in North America, really, when you get right down to it.
And that’s been going on now since… let’s see the Ecology Center was initially
formed in 1956 I think we got our initial appropriation from the state and in 1957
we got the initial appropriation from National Science Foundation. And so on. So
we’ve produced a lot of students from this in the ecological area in, mostly in
desert ecology, but also in aquatic ecology.
A lot of my activities, because of that, became involved with the National Science
Foundation; I took a two year appointment with NSF and spent some time as a
Program Director for Ecosystem Analysis in Washington. After which I became a
consultant to the Department of Energy and their board of consultants as an
ecologist. And, I served on the EPA Science Advisory Board for a period of 22
years. Basically in the ecological arena, but I also served on their central
committee which basically guided, or I should have said guided by giving advice
to the agency concerning ecological involvement in the environment and how
their charge basic regulation of environmental aspects infringed upon the
ecosystems. So that was basically what I did until I retired.
Then when it comes to my activities here on the Cache – Cache National Forest, I
think perhaps one of the major things that I was involved in was road construction
– highway construction on US Highway 89 going through the canyon. We were
very much involved in trying to keep the engineers at bay. They were basically
concerned with putting a highway through and not really caring a hell of a lot
about what’s happening to the river and this sort of thing. So we went to work on
that and the primary worker on that incidentally was Dr. Bill Helm – William
Helm.
I suggested at one time the lower portion of the highway should have been named
after him because he did --- he did a lot of work on it. And actually was
threatened by the highway people. They got to the governor and the governor
came down and wanted to have him fired. And thank goodness the president that
we had at the time refused to accept that and the governor finally backed off. But
yeah, we were concerned with basically what was happening to the highway. And
the thing that was happening from a policy point of view in the forest was the fact
that it had been utilized basically as grazing grounds for cattle and sheep. And as
a matter of fact when in the early 50s (you can still see the trails on the side of the
mountain) the sheep were being grazed on the face here and they’d also trek the
sheep down the canyon. Now they have to, they have to truck them down. But at
that time they trekked them down and you can see the trails – trail markers that
they made walking on the face. You can still see along the face here that where
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�they would, where the sheep would basically create a trail a little bit, kind of like
terracing going up and down. Here you can see some of it back here. That was all
private land incidentally. And it hadn’t been fenced at that time yet to keep the elk
and deer out of the area.
LH:
And that was private land?
JN:
Well, it was private land then but it hadn’t been fenced. So they’d come off the
forest and come on the private land and down through this area. That was only in
the fall when they’d take them off the mountain, or in the spring when they’d put
them up in the mountain. Because they’d start to unload them here and then take
them up the mountain. They’d trek them up the mountain instead of trucking. The
amount of grazing that’s gone on has really been reduced drastically. Mostly,
because the area has been basically converted over to a recreation area. So it’s
basically outdoor recreation, hunting and fishing, camping, hiking, all sorts of
things that would lead to the recreation aspect of the Forest Service’s charge.
LH:
Do you consider that a loss that it’s not so much grazing anymore?
JN:
Oh yeah. Grazing has been reduced a lot – a tremendous amount actually.
There’s, I think, only about two or three sheepherders on the mountain now and it
amounts only to some 10,000 sheep something like that where there used to be up
in the hundreds of thousands of sheep. And there’s still cattle grazing going on up
there, but it’s a small amount – relatively small amount. And in my opinion it’s
still too much.
LH:
So it’s good that there’s less grazing.
JN:
It’s good that there’s less grazing, but I think because of the change of emphasis
in the people’s use of the area, I think. I feel personally that there’s still too much
grazing going on up there. There’s also certain aspects of recreation that there’s a
little bit too much of which I disagree with; a lot of motorized access to the area.
ATVs, all terrain vehicles, and in the winter time, snowmobiles have taken over a
big portion of the area, and the people that use it, that use ATVs for example, a lot
of them are pretty responsible. But there’s always a portion of them that want to
make the place into a motorized playground so they like to drive up hills and they
gouge the hell out of things. You go up the back of Mt. Logan and you can see
where they, they just basically devil the hell out of the place. And it’s unfortunate
but that does happen. And in the wintertime of course, the snowmobilers do, like
they infringe upon the wilderness areas which you shouldn’t be doing. And
actually the current ranger in the area, I think, has been a little bit too sympathetic
with the motorized folks and not enough with the hikers and the horsemen in the
summertime. And in the wintertime the skiers, the snowshoers that I think cause a
lot less damage to the area than do the motorized vehicles.
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�LH:
You were talking about testing, sampling the fish in the area for the toxins from
Idaho and from Utah County. And you were talking about we’d get a big rain
storm and flushing those toxins into the water, which led into quite a lot of work.
Well, before we get there we should back up a little bit and I don’t know if you
wanted to talk more about that and what you found and if people didn’t like what
you found.
JN:
Well, one of the things that we did find was that the source of the toxins hit the
watersheds and of course rained into the river. But when they were on the
watershed they were also exposing grazing animals to the area. So we found a lot
of fluoride intoxication, for example, in cattle and in sheep, and also in some of
the wild animals: the sheep and elk and so on. And our findings basically caused
the Environmental Protection Agency and the state environmental agency to put
limits on what could be done in that particular area so that the steel mills had to
put up capture devices to keep the fluoride from going out. And the same thing
was true up here with the phosphate plants. So that you know, that was
successfully taken care of.
LH:
And when was this? When would this have been?
JN:
Oh this was back in the 1950s basically. And by the end of the ‘60s, the start of
the ‘70s, most of that had been pretty well taken care of. Fluoride intoxication
was pretty well put under control. Let’s see what other things did we have?
LH:
Well, I wonder about attitudes and changes over time. I mean, when I hear “Well
we were looking at this in the 50s and by the end of the 60s and the early 70s
most of that was under control.” And I think of just nationally, anyway, a shift.
Thinking about environmental consequences, and I’m only assuming, of course,
that there was this national shift. But I don’t know if it was as pervasive, if it took
longer a time in some areas. If people were resistant to the ideas.
JN:
Oh, there was a lot of resistance to the idea. That’s no question with that. But the
federal government, the Congress did pass some very important legislation
concerning the quality of the rivers and well, basically the waters of the United
States. And I served on the, as Chairman of the Ecological Committee for the
review of the legislation that came out in this area. The, I forget now the name of
the act. But it had to do with the quality of waters that came out. And then, and
some of the things that this act did was basically gave the charge to the
Environmental Protection Agency, the charge to regulate the quality of the waters
in the . . . For example, the Ohio River back in the 50s and 60s was basically an
open sewer, and somebody estimated that the water that was taken out of the river
for drinking purposes at Cincinnati had passed through someone’s bladder about 4
or 5 times. So there you go. The quality of the fish in the river was really
something. You know, it was basically introduced carp in a river that at one time
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�held some very important types of game fishes. And when the Act was finally
enforced those game fishes came back.
So you got up there to Pittsburgh, that was basically an open sewer and you can
find black bass and muskellunge and things like that occurring now in the river.
But they had been completely eliminated from the area before. So a lot of that
work was really fairly important. And it was a substantial change in the way
people looked upon their own waters. You know. The Environmental Protection
Agency has done an awful lot in that particular area at that time. Until the Bush
administration came on and then things went to hell again.
Well, I shouldn’t say went to hell-- they became so damn lenient in allowing
continued air pollution, for example, that caused a lot of the lakes in the US
northeast in the New England states and New York to acidify. A lot of the waters
in the lakes up there acidified to the point where it killed off a lot of the plants and
animals in those waters. That was mostly a result from all of the manufacturing
activity that was going on in the Ohio River area. The Ohio belt and the steel belt
– the Rust Belt they call it. And up until the time the Bush administration came
along there was substantial progress being made in trying to clean this up. Trying
to clean up the air pollution in the area and so on. And when the Bush
administration came in, why, they relaxed a lot of the rules for emissions or
relaxed a lot or didn’t enforce them, basically is what it amounted to.
LH:
This is the current Bush administration. Not 1988, but 2000?
JN:
Yes, the stupid man that we have leading the country now [George W. Bush].
LH:
Now were rivers out here in the, I mean we talked about the Ohio River, but were
there rivers out here in the west that were . . .
JN:
Oh sure. We had the Bear River was a real open sewer for a pretty long time:
starting up in Idaho and coming on down. The Bear River is an interesting river. It
starts in Utah and comes on down and goes through Wyoming and then comes
back into Utah, goes back into Wyoming, goes into Idaho and then comes back
into Utah and ends up in the Great Salt Lake. But it starts up in the Uintah
Mountains. And so there was a lot of activity that affected the water; number one
irrigation diversion. A lot of that came apart and then grazers were allowed to hit
the river and the river banks to a point where the river became fairly silt laden. A
lot of silt was dumped into the river and that has slowly improved. The irrigation
diversion has not, but it has slowly improved other than that. And grazers have
been somewhat more careful about doing things on the river banks and in many
areas the river bank has been fenced so that the cattle don’t get to it except at very
specific areas where they could get to the water and so on.
LH:
Because of course that contributes to erosion.
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�JN:
Yeah. Well that was – erosion was the result. When an area became overgrazed
why, the erosion became pretty drastic.
LH:
Right.
JN:
And a lot of mud came into the rivers on that basis. We had, our graduates went to
work for the Deseret Livestock Company which is a huge operation. It’s got 325
square miles of property on the Utah; I think it’s mostly all in Utah, border here in
the eastern – northeastern part of the border. And they have a big chunk of land in
the Uintah Mountains and they have a big chunk of land out in the West Desert.
But the training that the people who went to work there got from Utah State
University, the land managers that they hired really did a lot of things to improve
things.
Where, prior to really regulating the grazing, especially in the sump area and wet
areas, the grazing basically stopped water production in those area. Now Deseret
Livestock came in and they basically ponded many of those areas so that they
have little lakes now up in many of these washes. And with a certain aspect of
controlled grazing of cattle in the area, the way they do it now is basically put the
cattle into an area and allow them to graze intensively for a very short period of
time and then move them onto another area. That allowed some of those springs
to come back up again. So where the springs have been completely dried up
because the area was compacted by the grazing, the year round grazing was
actually producing water once again. And so that sort of thing has improved
substantially.
Oh, one other thing that I should mention. This was done experimentally. Dr.
Wayne Cook who was a professor in the Marine Science Department was trying
to improve the grazing aspects of the watershed where many of the grazing areas
were overgrazed, and when they were overgrazed a lot of the undesirable plants
came in; like mule’s ear for example. Wyethia [mule’s ear] was a plant that came
in and basically crowded out the grasses that the animals would normally graze
upon. And Wayne’s idea there was to cover the area with a pesticide or with an
herbicide I should say, to kill off the Wyethia. Being one of the nasty plants, one
of the most nasty plants up there. And allow the grasses to come back in. Well,
that worked fine except that the herbicide that he put in also was washed down
into the Logan River where we used to have a really good stonefly population in
the river. The so-called salmon fly. It wiped those out almost completely. Well it
did wipe them out completely to a point where Trout Unlimited – members of a
Trout Unlimited chapter here in the valley got together and gathered stoneflies
from over in Blacksmith Fork River and reintroduced them into the river and I
think that’s been fairly successful. That was done over the last 5 or 6 years.
LH:
Wow.
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�JN:
Well, I mentioned the aspects that influenced policies in the Logan Canyon were
basically the force of recreation use in the canyon basically crowding out the
grazing use. That was a change of land use in that respect. There’s still grazing
going on in the canyon but it’s been much reduced.
LH:
Since, I mean gradually over the last…
JN:
Well, gradually over the last few years. Yeah. The Wellsville Mountains over
here on the west of us was really badly grazed. And we went over into the
mountains back in the 1950s, the bare ground. There was virtually no vegetation
growing on it other than the big shrubs. The oak, not oak but maple and conifers,
so on. And a lot of that was being washed away, the ground underneath that was
being washed away down into the valley bottom. Well, the Forest Service finally
cut out the grazing in the area completely. The area, it’s a very steep mountain,
and, matter of fact, in the United States it’s the steepest mountain range that we
have any place in the United States. So they cut out the grazing on the darn thing
and allowed it to recuperate. And as a matter of fact now it’s a wilderness area:
The Wellsville Wilderness Area.
LH:
Hmm. So recreation is…
JN:
Recreation, I think, is probably the most important thing that’s going on in the
area. And depending upon who the ranger is and his background that comes in to
take care of the area, why, it tends to increase more and more toward recreation. I
think the last ranger, the current ranger that we have in the area is a little bit more
lenient on motorized use in the area than I would like to see happening. They’re
supposed to, the Forest Service is supposed to open up any land use decisions to
public discussion. And they try to get away from that. Of course the
Environmental Protection Agency has a love of . . . let me call it the, well before
a policy is put into action a study has to be made of the area that is being affected
from an environmental point of view, looking at the specific impacts of it. And
coming up with a decision as to what those impacts are and if the policy is one
that would impact the environment too much, that lays the Forest Service open to
suit. And many of the suits that have been brought against the land use
management agencies, Forest Service, BLM, Indian Service, and so on, have been
brought by basically recreational use, people like the Sierra Club, people like
Trout Unlimited, various other land use agents or interest groups, have
successfully knocked down some otherwise disturbing policies that could be
taking place. So I think the agencies have become a lot more aware of the impact
that whatever policies they make does have on public lands. And try to avoid,
they try to avoid the suits as much as possible.
LH:
It’s different out here. You know just how much land is public land and who’s
land is it.
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�JN:
Well, in the State of Utah 80% of the land in the state is public land. And that’s
you know, there’s probably more public land in the State of Utah than any other
place except Alaska.
LH:
Hmm.
JN:
[Reading question:] Have I ever tried to influence government actions?
Yes I have. I became very active as a Democrat: ran for office three times for the
State Legislature. Twice as a representative and once as a senator; and was
defeated three times. I was chair of the Democratic Party here in Cache County
for a number of years and a member of the state central committee as a Democrat.
But this is, we are, the Democrats here who are very strong on land use issues
have been defeated most of the time. But the State Legislature is really a
dictatorship of the Republican Party. And most of the land use issue is really that
is basically for land use. They would love to see the Forest Service and Bureau of
Land Management all privatized. And we’ve always been against that; that’s one
of the reasons we don’t get elected to office.
LH:
So how do we affect policy in other ways?
JN:
One example is, I was appointed to the-- can’t name the, remember the name of
the committee I was appointed to. It was a land use policy committee that looked
at the utilization of state lands. When Utah was created a state the state was
allocated, I think it was one section of land in each township. And so we have
blocks – the state has blocks of land all over the state; checker boarded basically.
And those lands were really misused. Number one a lot of them were in the
middle of federal land so that a lot of them were in Forest Service lands or Bureau
of Land Management lands and were really unaccessible to state management
control. And where they were accessible the state really blew it. The state sold off
the property in such a way that the state didn’t make much money. The monies
that were supposed to have been made off of those were supposed to go to the
school fund and support basically schools for the state.
And when I served on that particular committee to look at this and come up with
suggestions as to how this might be improved, the amount of money that was in
the school fund was only like about $600,000; whereas, in the state of New
Mexico it was almost a billion dollars. And we came up with a scheme that
allowed the state, the State Land Board to the school trust, it’s called School Trust
Lands Board now. [This] allowed them a good deal of latitude so that they could
sell or consolidate their land so it could be more easily managed. And those
proceeds that come off the sale of those lands or the utilization of them for
grazing purpose and this sort of thing, that would build the School Fund, and the
School Fund has been built now. It’s up into the millions of dollars where, over
the last 20 years. I think it was about 20 years ago that we did this thing. And that
was I think a fairly important move.
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�One of the things that happened on the Cache, for example, was that school trust
lands existed in the Forest Service areas that the Forest Service agreed to trade off
lands so that where the school trust land had been surrounded by school forest it
could be blocked off into a different area and the area that had been school trust
land would be reverted to Forest Service land. So in other words, there was a
trade made and they’d trade off Forest Service land for School Trust lands and
vice-versa. And a batch of trust lands was centered around the Beaver area, the
Beaver skiing area that was basically taken advantage of as a recreation area now.
So that they can develop recreation aspects of that particular area, which includes
some summer home development and so on that the monies that are made off of it
would then be reverted to the school trust lands. And that I think was a fairly
important thing that I was involved in.
We covered how the policies have been changing over the years. And I hope it
continues to change in that aspect. I think one of the things that I would like to see
happen is the Logan River and the Blacksmith Fork Rivers being considered as
Wild and Scenic Rivers. And they’re still talking about putting dams up here in
the canyon. That would be terrible if they did that. It’s a poor place to put up a
dam anyways. The area is basically Mississippi and limestone which is really
subject to water solution so that the area is undermined with caves and whatnot
that leakage from a dam built in that area would be tremendous. And put my little
house here in danger of a catastrophic flood if it should break. We are as it is,
we’re in danger of a 500 year flood, which is pretty rare. That’s why I built here.
LH:
Wow this scenic river. Now that’s been proposed, I imagine, or are there…
JN:
Well yeah, we have proposed it as a Wild and Scenic River but the Forest Service
has ignored us on that and I don’t know why. They should be really looking at it
from a recreation point of view. And that would be a recreation thing. Of course I
think the fact that it has some dams on it now, these basically run the river dams
of our generation. And the highest one is up here at the Third Dam. But the river
up above that could certainly qualify for a Wild and Scenic River. And it should
be. And there are other rivers that come into both the Blacksmith Fork and into
the Logan River.
The Right Hand Fork is another one that could be classified as wild and scenic.
Temple Fork would be wild and scenic. And that is basically being treated as
such. There’s an interesting thing about Temple Fork and Spawn Creek that goes
into Temple Fork. The Trout Unlimited has worked hard to preserve the Spawn
Creek as a spawning creek for the native Cutthroat Trout in the area. [It] has
prevailed upon the Forest Service to allow us to fence the river, Spawn Creek,
away from grazing. And when the grazers come up in there they have a rider
that’s supposed to be up there guiding the grazing. But they seldom do. They,
would like to get them down to the green grass as much as possible. And they
mash the hell out of the Spawn Creek to the point where it actually endangered
spawning in the area. It’s a tiny little creek and it’s hardly any wider than this
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�room in a lot of areas and the cattle were grazing right up to the end of it, right up
to the bank and into the river, the creek itself.
And the net result was that what had at one time been grass was turned over to
various kinds of rushes that are not palatable to plant, to the cattle or the sheep
that use the area. And so we prevailed upon them to fence it and they did. That
was nice. Temple Fork is another one that the, I don’t think they’ve fenced that
one yet. But they may end up putting some kind of obstruction on it. I know they
wiped out the road that went along side of it and moved the road up on the
mountainside a little bit further away from the river, which was important because
the road was built over some pretty permeable soil and it washed into the creek. It
should not have.
[Reading Questions:] Let’s see what else is? Who were some of the most
influential teachers that I had in the area and stuff in your field.
Oh, there were quite a few actually. Starting back in Wisconsin it was Phillip
Whitford who’s now dead unfortunately. But he really perked my interest in
ecology and that’s where I became basically an ecologist even though I went to
work as a fish manager initially and then later on as a aquatic toxicologist. But the
aquatic toxicology part, well, both of them. Fish management did rely much on
the ecology of the area and so on. And the toxicology part of it was basically an
autecological approach to the populations that lived in these aquatic
environments.
Then out here, when I came out here, I think the major, one of the major men was
William Sigler who was Head of the Wildlife Department and also my major
professor in my graduate degrees and also a very close friend that we maintained
through the years until he died. He was very important. Then I had two other
mentors here on the campus that I felt were extremely important. They were not
even in the College of Natural Resources. One was Wynn Thorne who was in
Agriculture. He was an agronomist, a soil agronomist, but he was also head of the
experiment station and he was just a marvelous scientist and he was a person who,
you know, I just loved to associate with him. He was just such a neat guy. And the
other one was Dean Peterson, who was Dean of Engineering. And he and I
became very close friends and again he was a very open-minded sort of an
engineer. Although he was a Republican and I was a Democrat. [Chuckles] That
was the only difference we had between the two of us. But he influenced me a
great deal, especially in the administrative areas. Those were the three I think
most important guys that were my teachers.
Then among my colleagues there were, well there was Bill McConnell who was
my compatriot in the stream and lake survey stuff. He ended up being a professor
at Colorado State University and we maintained the long friendship and peer
relationship over the many years. He died here a couple of years ago. And then a
lot of the people that were my peers are dead. I mean they died.
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�Oh I should point out that I had, I put together every year a group of alumni and
we meet up in Bear Lake. We call ourselves the Mossbacks. They come from-Bill Mcconnell was one of them--from Colorado State, from Wyoming, from
Idaho, from the state of Washington, from Alaska, from Arizona, and throughout
Utah. There’re about, at our biggest number I think we had about 16 guys that
used to go to get together up at Bear Lake. I used to rent a house up there and then
some units, some motel units and then I did the cooking, and we’d sit around for
two days and in addition to renewing the acquaintances we’d always have
something to talk about. We were mossbacks so a lot of it was basically
curmudgeon type talk, but a lot of it was also dealing with, discussing various
land use policies, and in a very informal sort of a way. We’d sit around in the
living room and then talk about these things, take walks and talk about them. And
there were always some musicians in the group and we’d also play music and sing
about them. That’s still going on. I’ve got the group getting together on May 9, 10
and 11th up at the Ideal Beach again this year. And I’m preparing an Austrian
kraut dinner for them for one dinner and the other one is, oh it will be a beef
dinner of some kind.
LH:
Nice.
JN:
Breakfasts are sour dough and quiche. Sour dough pancakes and quiche. Doing all
the [cooking], you know that’s part of the old man’s thing.
[Reading questions:] Particular stories. What do we have?
Well, the critical policies that were enacted in the canyon was the creation of
wilderness areas. We had the Swan Peak Wilderness Area, not the Swan Peak, the
Gog Magog area up here and then the Wellsville area. Those were important
policy changes that took place.
Highway construction: we did have a big impact on highway construction in the
area. And with Bill Helm’s initial phase in the lower portion of the canyon and
then when they began the work on the upper portion, up above Right Hand Fork,
we were very active there to make sure that they didn’t encroach upon the river in
anyway. And the cost of building the highway was increased substantially. But we
did manage to get the beauty preserved in the canyon. So that was an important
policy thing that we were involved it that. And that was basically a citizen
originated, well, I should say a citizen, it was not official input. Let’s put it that
way. It was not agency input that was basically individuals. Although some of us
were associated with the university, it was on our own volition that we went to
work on this and tried to change the way of doing things. And we were
successful. They increased the cost of the highway but it was well worth the
expense.
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�LH:
JN:
It sounds as though the Legislature has always been, you called it dictatorship, I
believe earlier. Like just this Republication bastion of …
Well yeah. I am down on the Republican Party here in the State of Utah because it
is ultra-conservative. It is use oriented, development oriented, and all of this sort
of thing. And there are members of the party that are much more liberal, I should
say, they’re not as conservative. And as a matter of fact, one such, [David] Hogue
from Salt Lake City, he helped us a great deal when we were working to get a fish
disease policy board established.
That’s another story that was kind of long. A fish disease control was handled
basically by Ron Goede in the Fisheries Disease Laboratory here west of town.
And the private growers became incensed that some of the rules and regulations
that were created by the laboratory. And Ron was extremely effective in getting
this established nationally, not just as, within the state of Utah. So that various
barriers were established disallowing any diseased fishes from going from one
state to another.
And the growers here in the state of Utah, the private growers, became incensed at
that so they prevailed upon the Legislature to take that away from the Division of
Wildlife Resources and put it into the Department of Agriculture, the State
Department of Agriculture. And when they did that initially, they created a system
that was dominated by private growers and basically under the dictatorship then,
it was basically that dictatorship of the Department of Agriculture.
Well we were incensed by that and began a movement to create input by the,
continuing input by the Division of Fish and Wildlife—the Division of Wildlife
Resources into disease control issues. And so we went to work and had this fish
disease policy board created. And Hogue was very instrumental in that. He was a
Republican but he was very instrumental in helping us do that. And he got so
incensed with the conservative nature of the Republican party that he quit the
party and is now running as a Democrat. So some changes like that have taken
place in, and I’m going to send him some money so that…
But at any rate we were beset upon again by the fish controllers. Which is a
$600,000 a year business. And recreation fisheries is a $600,000, 000 a year
business here in the state of Utah. And the main bone for contention is the spread
of whirling disease, which we have been controlling very nicely in the state
because of the fish policy board as it was created. But now the private controls
prevailed upon the legislature to loosen that up substantially. And a guy by the
name of Mike Noel from Kanab, who doesn’t have any water near him at all, is
the guy that is responsible for following the dictates of the Farm Bureau in
creating a program that is not very good right now. It’s in bad shape again.
But you have these sorts of things going on politically in the state that are really
difficult to handle from a really wise land use policy. And it pervades, it goes
beyond the fisheries area. I mean it goes into virtually all aspects of land use. The
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�ranchers, they feel like they have a special interest on the federal lands
surrounding their area of operation and only their opinion should count; this sort
of a thing.
Mike Noel is a rancher from down in Kanab and with the State Legislature and
he’s one of these people that does that sort of thing. When I sound bitter about
politics in the State [Utah] then it’s because I am. One of the particular stories that
I like to share, God, I’ve got so many of them.
And I pointed out that I am politically active. Or at least I was. I kind of retired
from it because I’m getting too old and my back hurts me too much to get out and
do stumping.
LH:
We’ve covered a lot. Do you want to close with a little story or a little hope?
JN:
Well, I know one of the favorite stories I like to tell is when I left Wisconsin to
come out here, before I left I went to say goodbye to a friend of mine who ran a
sporting goods store just a few blocks away, half a block away from where I lived
at the time. And as I walked in to say goodbye to him, he was talking to a
customer there who just happened to mention Utah. Well, God, when he
mentioned Utah my ears perked up since I was coming out here. And I bust into
the conversation and asked him if he was, where he was in Utah. And he said, oh
he’d just graduated from Utah State, he said. “Oh my God,” I says, “that’s where
I’m going.” And this was . . . I asked him “Is there any good fishing out in that
area?” And he says, “Oh yeah.” He says, “Right in the city of Logan,” he says,
“or the town of Logan you can walk to some very good fishing.” And he
described a spot. He says, there’s a beautiful spot with a nice fishing hole just
above a fox farm. Well, there used to be a fox farm right across the river here. The
farmer Liechty, he was raising fox and mink and the hole was right up here. And
lo and behold, ten years later I bought a lot on the property and built my house on
it. So that was from a story that occurred in Milwaukee of all places.
LH:
What luck.
JN:
What other stories. Well, a lot of the stories that we had were related. My early
stories were related with my stream and lake crews. And we used to go out and do
things. At that time the State Fish and Game Department, we were paid $2.50 a
day per diem and that was, that was to buy our lodging and food and everything
on the road. Well you couldn’t do that for $2.50. So we camped out all the time.
And we would buy groceries and we’d, and then we’d make do with that. And
we’d supplement our groceries with anything that we could catch that was edible.
Or we thought was edible. So our crews would go out and we’d bring back to
camp rattlesnakes that we’d skin and section and fry, cook, eat. Grubs that we’d
dig out of logs and we’d roast those and eat those. Locusts; we’d catch those and
fry those and eat them, that is, the grasshoppers. Oh, boiled owl. We’d catch an
owl and boil it. You know what a boiled owl tastes like?
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�LH:
No
JN:
Boiled owl. Yeah, we’d do all kinds of things like that. And then of course to
entertain ourselves we’d, well, one of the guys would go out and we’d rob
sparrow nests and bring the fledglings back to camp. And then train them to go
falconing with. But you falcon with, we’d go after grasshoppers. Put them on your
finger. They were a little bird. They were only about that tall; tiny little thing. And
we’d go, “Kill, kill.” It’d go after a grasshopper and then we’d go and pick up the
grasshopper from, and that worked out pretty well actually.
LH:
Did it really.
JN:
Yeah. And the other thing we had, we caught a big old golden eagle one time,
which now is illegal. You can’t do that. We caught a golden eagle that had been
stuffing himself on road kill jack rabbits. It couldn’t fly. So we put a fish net over
his head and brought him back to camp. And then we’d feed him. We’d put him
on a perch there and feed him. And we had a little sparrow hawk that shared the
perch with him. This was a little sparrow hawk – like that and a great big old
eagle like this. And the sparrow hawk, we put a piece of meat down between the
two of them. The sparrow hawk would go like this and go peep, peep, peep. And
the big old eagle looked down and go peep, peep. The little sparrow hawk would
fox out the, bluff out the eagle, got the piece of meat.
LH:
Wow.
JN:
Oh and we’d have altercations in the field. Bill McConnell and I also took on a
lake rehabilitation task that was basically done in Panguitch Lake and Navajo
Lakes in Southern Utah. Why, those lakes were taken over by Utah chub and they
were basically trout lakes. And we couldn’t, they couldn’t support trout anymore
so what we did was to go in there and reclaim the lake by poisoning out the chub.
We’d use Rotenone which is a toxin that was taken out of the cubé root of the
cubé plant in southern or in South America. It would be powdered up and then
dumped into the water with an emulsifier of some kind. And it would kill all the
fish that were in the lake. And then we’d start over by putting in just straight trout.
And in doing that, let’s see, how many times was I accosted? I was accosted three
times in the state of Utah by rifles. One guy had a pistol. And trying to get work
done and I remember one, down at Panguitch Lake, there was a spring pond that
had to be cleaned out and it happened to be on private property, and the cabin was
on it, and it was inhabited. And I went up there and the guy knew that we were
doing this apparently. And he came to the door with a 30/30 and put it in my
chest. And I had to talk like a Dutch Uncle before he finally allowed me to clean
out the pond. And the other time was on Strawberry Reservoir when I was, had a
crew out there. We were building a fish ladder so that we could access a stream
for spawning purposes. And it happened to be right through a fishing camp that
was built there. And the owner of the camp was really getting nasty with my crew
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�out there. So I, I told him to layoff. And I told him if he didn’t layoff he would
end up getting a bath in the river. And he came out with his pistol and he
threatened me with his pistol. And I went over there and tried to grab him by the
collar and he turned around and ran.
LH:
So there.
JN:
I was a big guy. Well, I was a big strong guy. I was a paratrooper during WWII
and was strong as a bull so I could do a lot of things like that and get away with it.
I was a big person.
LH:
[Laughing] Wow.
JN:
Oh. There’s so many stories that I could tell. Here in the Cache most of it was
really pleasant. I hunted a lot up here and fished a lot in the stream. And of course
I had my students fishing in the streams up here, or working in the streams up
here. I had a lot of good times.
When I was an Assistant Professor here I used to, I had a laboratory in the old
part of the Natural Resources building, that is the blue panel thing that was there.
And I was the first person to move in there. And then I had a laboratory down in
the basement of that building. And a bull pen that I housed my students in and
we’d, every morning we’d get together and spend most of the morning hashing
one thing over or another. There’d be half a dozen students and myself. And it
was basically a kind of a free forum. Discussed just about everything, you know.
It was fun. We learned a lot. And the thing is that the students also, because of
that kind of a communal arrangement, partially because of it, and the fact that I
was pretty liberal about letting them do things that they liked to do, they’d help
each other out a lot in the field. The guys would get out there and help one guy up
at the, working over at Hyrum Reservoir was trying to, gill net fish out of it, so a
group would go over and help him with the gill nets. Some guys working up at
Bear Lake and they’d do the same thing you know, and so on.
And every once in a while we’d have a party; we’d hold the party up at Guinivah.
One of the guys would get a beer keg from over in Wyoming, and then we’d if we
caught a lot of fish out of Hyrum Reservoir, and at this particular time you caught
a lot of fish out of Hyrum Reservoir, and bring those over and we’d clean those
up and fry those and my wife Ruth would end up making a bunch of potato salad
and other wives would bring, it would be kind of a catchall of everything. We
used to have a marvelous time. And that was a little bit different than what it is
now. The students up here now tend to be pretty much independent, they don’t
tend to help each other a lot. At least that’s the way it seems to me. Of course I’ve
been away from it for pretty long. I retired 19 years ago.
LH:
Wow.
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�JN:
Well, retired is one way of saying it. But I went on emeritus status in 1989 and
then for the next three years I worked pro bono for the university writing
proposals.
LH:
All right.
JN:
So there you go.
LH:
They lure you back.
JN:
The reason I came out here in the first place, I guess, was kind of an interesting
one. I was president of the Forestry Club at the University of Wisconsin in
Milwaukee. And as president it was my responsibility to bring together once a
month a speaker, and one of the speakers that I brought together was, or brought
to the University was the Regional Forester for the US Forest Service in that area,
in the central part of the United States. And after he gave us a talk about how nice
it is to work for the Forest Service and all that sort of stuff, I took him aside and I
said “Where would you suggest would be a good place to go to school in the
forestry or the natural resources area?” And he said, “Well, you ought to consider
my alma mater,” he says, “Utah State.” And he says of the nine regional foresters,
seven of them are Utah State graduates, and the head of the Forest Service in
Washington is also a Utah State graduate.
So I said, “My God.” With that kind of a reputation I’d come out here and go to
school. And I did. Well actually it was a very tiny school. At that time it was, let’s
see. Faculty members, in the Wildlife Department there were three faculty
members. In the Range Science Department there were three faculty members,
and in the Forestry Department there was one, two, three, four faculty members.
And so it was. And then there was a Dean of the College: Dean Turner (Louis
Turner). That has grown into, oh my goodness, I don’t know how many faculty
members we have now, somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 or 50, something
like that. And you know a big student component. Actually we were the first
college to produce a doctoral student in the entire university.
LH:
Really?
JN:
Kim Wolfe was the first Ph.D. And he was in the aquatic, he was one of Dr.
Sigler’s students. Bill McConnell was the second Ph.D. earner and I was the third.
And this was in the entire University. So we kind of were pioneers in developing
the graduate program at Utah State University. Oh I should say another mentor of
mine was Stewart Williams who was the Dean of the Graduate School at that
time. He and I became really good friends, and he was a geologist and I’ve always
had a kind of an abiding interesting in geology of this particular area in particular.
And so he took pride in the fact that he was Dean when the first PhDs were
offered by Utah State University and they were offered in our department.
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�LH:
That’s nice.
JN:
High jinks; had a little student high jinks. We did; a lot of students here. But I did
my undergraduate work here. My last two years on it, sophomore and senior as an
undergraduate student. And we always had a battle between the engineers and the
foresters. We called ourselves the foresters at that time. And we’d play all kinds
of high jinks on each other. The engineers who used their engineering talent at
one time turned a bunch of chickens and sheep loose in the old forestry building,
which is now gone, it’s no longer here. And then they bricked up the entrance of
it. This was during the night. And we came there in the morning. We had to break
down the brick walls to get into the building. And then found it was loaded with
sheep and chickens.
And then of course we did the same thing to them. Some things were kind of
cruel. Like the cruelest thing that we did, I wasn’t involved in that because I
couldn’t have done it. But they took a horse in the engineering building; an old
nag that was over at the mink farm, and then killed it in the men’s room. They had
to drag a dead horse out of the building. But those things don’t happen anymore.
LH:
Oh!
JN:
So you got enough?
[Reading question:] Oh, books or writings that influenced the land use.
LH:
Oh yeah.
JN:
Well of course there was always Leopold’s.
LH:
Sand County?
JN:
Well no. He wrote initially a book on wildlife management. [Game Management]
That was the important book actually. The artsy book was his Sand County
Almanac. He did another one that was finished by one of his sons. Moon River
[Round River] I think it was called.
LH:
Oh yeah.
JN:
That was one book that influenced me a lot. Then there was a book on animal
ecology. There were not very much written about ecology at that time. The book
on plant ecology by Üosting from Duke University was available. There was a
Weber and Clements that was written by Weber at the University of Nebraska and
Clements who was part of the Ally, Emerson, Park, Park, and Schmidt book that
was written on animal ecology out of the University of Chicago. And that was
about it.
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�Oh, there was another thing that I did in ecology. I looked into the origins of
ecology on the Utah State University campus. And that was, I looked into our
archives and wrote a little piece on the origin of ecology. [Ecology Center review
documents: USU Special Collections 17.12:63 NO. 20] It turned out that there
was a professor that was hired from Cornell University in 1902 that taught the
first course in ecology on the campus. And it was fairly short lived because he
wasn’t here that long. I think he was here only about three or four years. And then
when he left the course was no longer taught until I think the late teens, when, I
can’t recall his name right now. But he started, he was in range management and
he started and taught a course in plant ecology. And that kind of persisted, I think,
through the years until we got the first dean and then the school of Forest, Range
and Wildlife Management was created in 1926. And the dean of that school later
on became the Chief Forester of the United States. And he was followed by Ed
Cliff who was from Heber City and a graduate of this institution who became the
Chief Forester. (He was the Chief Forester when the Regional Forester told me
that I was, or that this was one of the best places to come because of the
reputation of the Regional Foresters and the Chief Forester.)
And Ed Cliff was an interesting guy. He was a Mormon; he was from Heber City,
Utah, and graduated from this institution when he became the Chief Forester.
Well, he was a forest ranger here first. And he, he and his wife spent their
honeymoon at the Forest Service cabin at Tony Grove. The cabin is still there.
And so actually it’s a historical site now. And it’s still active. It’s still being used
as a, by the Forest Service as a base of operations of one sort or another. But it
was a very primitive thing, you know. They had a wood stove in there that served
as a cook stove, these big wood ranges. When he [Ed Cliff] came back and looked
at, when he was Chief Forester of the United States, and he came back to visit the
ranger [up at Tony Grove] that was present at the time [thinking of his name]. (Oh
god, he’s retired down in New Mexico now. I can’t remember his name either
again.) But anyhow, he happened to be the ranger out there and they had replaced
the wood stove with a gas operated, propane stove and so on. [Chuckles] And
when Ed came out there and he saw this and he said, “That’s unmentionable. You
should not have a gas stove. There’s got to be a wood stove.” And he ordered
them to take the gas out and put the wood stove back in. So it’s still there. It’s a
wood stove and if you want to cook back there you have to cook on the wood
stove.
LH:
That’s awesome.
JN:
There were a lot of colorful people that came out of this institution. Well, many of
them worked here initially as, related to the forest, or they worked on the forest.
In the late 1920s and through the ‘30s the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps
was really active here. And a lot of the people that became well known in the field
were part of the CCC operations. Ken Wolfe who earned his first, was the first
Ph.D. granted out of the Utah State University was a bad boy in Chicago. See, he
was from Chicago. He was a bad boy. He was given the choice by the judge to
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�either go to jail or join the CCC and he could come out here and do some work
out here. So he opted to come out here. Well, he not only came out here and went
to work for the CCC, he met his wife out here, got married and when he got into
the service he became a Lieutenant in the service, discharged. And when he was
discharged he came here and earned all three of his degrees here at Utah State
University. And he became a world-renowned virologist, especially in the aquatic
area. He worked out of Leetown, West Virginia [Leetown Science Center]. Wrote
a number of books on virology and was the first to develop a cold water cell line
that they could deal with in the laboratory.
LH:
The bad boy from Chicago.
JN:
The bad boy from Chicago. Yeah. When I started off school here back in the late
40s we were all, all of these students were returned veterans. And it was quite a
different bunch. They all became, upon graduation they all achieved leadership
positions one way or another in the field. We had Bud Phelps was one my costudents, he became Director of the Fish and Game Department here in the state
of Utah, and then later on was Director for Ducks Unlimited.
And Don Smith was a football player here. And he became Director of the Fish
and Game Department here. I think most of the directors of the Fish and Game
Department that we had here were graduates of ours. But then we had [graduates
that became] Directors of the Fish and Game Departments in many other places.
Iowa was another one that was one of our graduates. Ohio was another one that
was one of our graduates. Nevada was . . . he was a graduate. He was a football
player and Director of the Fish and Game Department in Nevada and one of our
graduates. And they had a relatively big impact on the development of educated
natural resource managers in the State.
Up until World War II most of the resource managers that we had in the United
States were basically patronage type people. They’d come up through the ranks as
Fish and Game wardens of one sort or another, or when they went to work for the
Forest Service, why, they were basically field hands to begin with and so on. But
once the programs got started and they started educating people in the scientific
way of managing the resources . . . why . . . A great influx came right after World
War II when the veterans came back and the GI Bill allowed them to get an
education in this particular area. So the field, the Fish and Game Departments, the
Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, all of those Federal agencies
and state agencies became permeated with our graduates. And we were, Utah
State was one of the biggest institutions developing these. There were other
institutions that were doing the same thing but I think as far as really making an
impact early on, Utah State was probably one of the biggest contributors in this
particular area. So that was nice.
LH:
That is nice.
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�JN:
It was nice to be part of it, too.
LH:
Yeah. Well.
JN:
That was kind of rambling but…
LH:
I like rambling. I’m sure I get the good stuff. Well it’s all good. Thank you so
much. I think we’ve certainly touched on all this. This is such a rich, rich
interview. Thank you.
JN:
Well, I’ll be happy to go over any part of it with you and clean it up somewhat if
you want me to.
LH:
That would be great. And, well, I don’t know that I’ll be doing the transcribing. I
hope to a little bit. But no matter how it happens you’ll get a CD so you can listen
to yourself and the transcript as well.
JN:
Okay. And make necessary changes or additions.
LH:
Yeah. Sure
JN:
Sure.
LH:
Thank you. Well then I will sign off of this. It is nice. It is 11:00 and closing the
first interview with John. Thank you.
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�
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John Neuhold interview, 11 April 2008, and transcription
Description
An account of the resource
The interview includes some personal background information, but mostly discusses John Neuhold's professional life and education. He also talks about his mentors and work in Wisconsin, but mostly his work in Utah, including a project with the Deseret Livestock Company, working with fisheries, dealing with impact of various activities on rivers, including the construction on US Highway 89 through Logan Canyon, development of departments in Natural Resources at Utah State University and the politics of natural resource management and the legislature. The interview also references the Mossbacks group of retired natural scientists.
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Neuhold, John M.
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Hilliard, Lyra
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Bear River (Utah-Idaho)
Neuhold, John M.--Interviews
Neuhold, John M.--Family
Neuhold, John M.--Career in Ecology
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Plant ecology--Research
Fishery management--Research--Utah
Lake ecology--Research--Utah
Stream ecology--Research--Utah
Utah State Agricultural College--Alumni and alumnae--Interviews
College teachers--Utah--Logan--Interviews
Utah State University. Ecology Center--History
Roads--Utah--Logan Canyon--Design and construction
United States Highway 89--Design and construction
Roads--Widening--Utah--Logan Canyon
Roads--Environmental aspects--Utah--Logan Canyon
Grazing--Utah--Logan Canyon
Recreation areas--Utah--Logan Canyon
Environmental toxicology--Research--Utah
Water--Pollution--Law and legislation--United States
Water quality--Bear River (Utah-Idaho)
Land use--Utah--Logan Canyon
Public lands--Utah
Environmental policy--Utah
Neuhold, John M.--Friends and associates
Fishes--Diseases--Law and legislation--Utah
Utah State University--Students--Anecdotes
Utah State University--Alumni and alumnae
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Oral history
Interviews
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Logan Canyon (Utah)
Logan River (Utah)
Cache National Forest (Utah and Idaho)
Bear River (Utah-Idaho)
Rich County (Utah)
Uinta Mountains (Utah and Wyo.)
Temple Fork (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Wellsville Mountain Wilderness (Utah)
Navajo Lake (Utah)
Panguitch Lake (Utah)
Spawn Creek (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Temple Fork (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Blacksmith Fork Canyon (Utah)
Right Hand Fork (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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eng
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 2 Fd. 6
Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 2 Fd. 6
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Logan Canyon Reflections
-
http://highway89.org/files/original/e043b6437fe21a9b953f92381903b6ef.mp3
b402d958140ac2ac17780e155c737cd4
http://highway89.org/files/original/b26ba0bf286f3df603e1dbd3ada0d5d0.pdf
191f30876a7d6afb212f7828b447a85e
PDF Text
Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Jim Kennedy
Place of Interview:
Date of Interview:
Quinney Library, College of Natural Resources, USU
May 4, 2009 & May 5, 2009
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Barbara Middleton
Barbara Middleton
Recording Equipment:
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Radio Shack, CTR-122
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Susan Gross
Barbara Middleton 25August 2009; Randy Williams, 12 July 2011;
Becky Skeen, Fall 2012
Brief Description of Contents: Kennedy discusses his childhood experiences in nature and
feelings toward nature. He talks about his professional career and relationships (with the Forest
Service and as a professor), and how those have helped him form his current perspective and
worldview.
Reference:
BM = Barbara Middleton (Interviewer; Interpretive Specialist, Environment &
Society Dept., USU College of Natural Resources)
JK = Jim Kennedy
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops in
conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with brackets.
Tape four was never turned into the USU Special Collections for deposit or transcription. At the
end of the transcript is Professor Kennedy’s 2005 CV.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 3: A]
BM:
This is Barbara Middleton, and we are here on the USU campus with Jim Kennedy on
Monday, April 4th. It’s about 2:00 in the afternoon, and we’re in the Quinney Natural
Resources Library, recording for the Logan Canyon Land Use Management Project.
So, welcome Jim.
JK:
Thank you.
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�BM:
Why don’t you go ahead and start off with your –
JK:
Do you just want me to follow the script? Pretty much, until I get down to my – yeah, let’s
just do that.
BM:
Why don’t you start with your full name and then a biographical sketch?
JK:
I’m James Joseph Kennedy, III. I was born in Philadelphia in 1940; it was about four weeks
after Hitler invaded the Benelux Countries. My first memories are of the city. I was a first
child with my grandparents. And the only person that wasn’t involved in the war effort was
my grandmother, who pretty much raised me. My grandfather worked in the steel mills and
was a Labor Union organizer (which is deep in my DNA, in my social values and the way I
look at the world). My father was in charge of building altimeters, eventually for B29s and
RCA. My mother was the executive secretary for a firm that suddenly became hugely
important in developing fire extinguishing foam systems for aircraft carriers.
I remember when the war ended. I remember the black shades on the windows. I remember
the sense of, you know, everyone working hard to do something to defeat evil. The first
Christmas present I can remember asking for at age three – excuse me, age four – was a
wagon, so I could go collect tin and paper and recycle stuff to help defeat evil.
But after the war was over we moved up to central Pennsylvania. My favorite place in
Philadelphia were always the parks, even when they put gun emplacements up on Fernhill
Park, next to Midvale Steel in Philadelphia (you know, in case of supposed bombing or
attack or anything on that important industry that proved a large portion of the metal for the
Philadelphia naval yards). I always spent time in the park, even when they tried to keep
people out of that. I bartered with the guards to let me go in at certain times in that restricted
territory, just to be out where it was green, and trees and birds, and even garter snakes in
that part of Philadelphia. My favorite place to go was to go to the zoo. I always loved the
wild lands.
And so after the war when my father had to change jobs and move up to central
Pennsylvania, we moved on to a farm. We rented the farm and the family (a huge family,
with probably an average of maybe 7th grade education, with about their nine children)
rented the land, 300 acres of the farm that we were living on, renting the house on. They had
a smaller, less prosperous adjacent farm, and that wild land and those fields, and also the
open-heartedness of these (and in no disrespect say “simple”) people.
Probably one of the persons that had one of the greatest impacts on my life is still alive at
probably 95; one of the young men there, never married. He took to us kids and we followed
him, he started paying us a pittance to work for him. I learned never to whine, you know,
never to complain; never to blame anyone. It just didn’t benefit you. I learned a work ethic. I
learned that’s how you got respect from adults, by doing what you’re told without whining
and doing it well. But also being able to have a sense of humor and irony and fun at what
you were doing. And a person that probably didn’t graduate from junior high taught me that
as much as anybody. And also, just how to live off the land – which they did legally and
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�illegally with great skill; had been doing so for generations. I don’t think any of those
people, other than maybe a brother that was strapped into the war had ever been more than
50 miles from where they were born. It was a very rural, rural area.
Someone once described Pennsylvania as Philadelphia to the east, Pittsburgh to the west,
and Appalachia in between; and I was raised in Appalachia.
BM:
What was the town?
JK:
It was called Montgomery, Pennsylvania. Then we moved a few miles to less of a middle
town (though all those towns were middle towns, and would now be called “rust bucket”
areas). Then we moved into town, bought a house. That was the first house my parents
owned, and that would have been 15 years of marriage (I just turned 12), and we moved to
that little town. We had been going over there to the Catholic Church, so I knew some
Catholic kids there. Our graduation class was only 49, of which three of us got PhDs, and
about a third of us went to college (which is really astounding when I think of it).
But when I moved, it was very much a small town. Everybody knew you almost to a fault,
and especially even a smaller subset of our community of 2500 people within a church and a
school. But it was a good place to grow up. I was, again, much closer to the floodplain and
the tributaries of the Susquehanna River – which was just like, you know, Huckleberry Finn,
Tom Sawyer’s playground and growing up an adventure place for me.
I spent a lot of time in the forest and woods. I always liked getting up early in the morning,
even if there weren’t cows to milk, or traps to check. But I was always involved in trapping,
hunting, fishing and getting up early in the morning. I was an ADHD kid, so I was
hyperactive, easily bored, short attention span, hated being cooped up inside of buildings
(whether it was for church, for family reunions or for school). And by getting out early in
the morning and releasing some energy and feeding my spirit and having some control over
my life independently of the adult world, I was ready to face the adult world at 8:45 when
the school bell rang. And I found it was wonderful therapy for me. So I always went to the
woods, and went to the fields and the streams.
BM:
You mentioned trapping. Would you tell us a little bit about that?
JK:
Well it’s as brutal of a relationship as you can have with nature, maybe with the exception
of bull fighting. And at the time I knew that. One of the earliest things I had to wrestle with
as a child was my sensitivity to animals and lots of stuff that wasn’t okay for boys in the
‘40s and ‘50s to have. If you brought up as a topic it was usually shunned and ridiculed or
laughed at, so you rarely did that. The only people you might be able to talk to with were
girls, and that wasn’t cool at that age in that era either. And so I remember that I never, ever
missed going out to check my trap line. I remember one time my mother trying to lock me
in when I had a 103 fever. The chances of finding a muskrat in the traps that I set, the way
we set them alive after five minutes when the trap would bite them and they would dive in
the water for protection, they would drown; maybe one out of 20 of the muskrats we took
out of our traps were alive, which was increased torture. I always considered that really
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�important, and mortal sin to me would’ve been, you know – some people do not check a
trap line for two, three, or four days. That, to me, was just unpardonable. So in a perverse
way it did develop a certain ethic. And you know, my feelings that 4:45 or 5:10 in the
morning when it was raining outside wasn’t the issue, damn it. You had a job to do and if
you want to engage in such a brutal activity, you had to have at least some standards
involved in the process. A lot of the animals we were trapping had bounties on them, such
as fox and weasel.
When I first started trapping, at probably age 10, the state said they were bad and gave you
money to prove it – there was a certain sense of – you know everything was, you know,
most beliefs were accepted with zero tolerance. This was it, period; whether it was your
being educated in your religion, your politics or in school. And if you had feelings against
that, especially as a man, you were supposed to get a hold of them. And the fact that
shooting animals, or trapping them especially, would bother me and continued to do so was
troublesome to me. And I thought somehow that I was wrong. Most the other adult males
and boys didn’t seem to have that problem at all.
But I loved the mornings. I must say that I probably enjoyed trapping more than anything; I
was usually out by myself. And later as I became a teenager and we got automobiles with
my trapping buddy (we’re still very close) – he went right into the steel mills after high
school, and we still talk and respect and love each other very much. So for about three years
I did it with a person who I became very, very close to. Plus it was earning money, which
was really important. And earning money was a badge of manhood, and adulthood, and
responsibility and accomplishment. And we earned money from it; we were very, very good
at it. And we worked hard at it, and fast, and checked our traps (you know, we were out
there twice a day). The number of animals we caught per trap, per year was astounding;
maybe the average would be three and for us it was 30!
BM:
Wow.
JK:
Because we moved them everyday, you know if they didn’t catch anything. And moved fast
through a stream, and then came back over it a month later, for example, just to get a high
probably sets with your traps. And I hunted and fished; all of that stuff as well.
BM:
Just in terms of setting your traps, you’re saying they’re in wet areas?
JK:
Well, obviously fox and weasel weren’t; but for mink, raccoon and primarily muskrat.
Muskrat were the most abundant, the easiest to catch and they were, you know you could
average $1.50 per pelt – which today would probably be $10.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JK:
And if you caught, you know, 500 of them – well, we’d catch about 350 a season. So you
know, multiply that times $10 – for some kids to do something. Well we’d get 350 when we
had a car, with about 45-50 traps. And of course you had to skin them; you know, skin them,
scrape them, cure them. And it was a lot of work, and a lot of effort, and a lot of skill. There
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�was a blood and blister intimacy with everything that you did in that rural environment in
the ‘40s and ‘50s; whether it was recreation, whether it was work, whether it was
hunting/fishing, and whether it was you getting paddled by the teachers or something, you
know. It was much more intimate and direct than today.
BM:
The money that you earned, was that to help support your family?
JK:
Well, saving money for college, so indirectly yes. But also, you know anything you wanted
you had to – anything extra other than Christmas presents and birthday presents – you had to
get for yourself. And if you broke a birthday present, you know, that was tough. You had to
replace it. And so it was you know, the money was important. When we lived on the farm
we weren’t that wealthy. I was the first Kennedy in my family to go to college. I bet you I
killed and we ate cottontails and squirrels, probably 200 year, for the family. That’s quite a
lot of protein. In fact a columnist used to call squirrels “meat that grew on trees.” On the
other side of the Mississippi, here’s a rodent that didn’t hibernate, and didn’t burrow under
the snow like mice – it was always up in trees, it was always visible, and it kept a huge
number of families from starving over the winters. They were always abundant.
BM:
How did you prepare it?
JK:
Oh you know, you usually par-boil them, and then roast them, bake them. You can make
squirrel stew; they’re very tough meat, but they’re very good, very succulent. It’s unlike
rabbit, you know. Rabbits are easier to vanish; squirrels are very muscular, but very good
protein and very good food. And woodchucks, you know. All sorts of stuff we’d eat, and
lots of it. And of course we’d always kill a couple of deer. So we had huge pit freezers, old
ice cream freezers that would hold three times the amount that a normal freezer would
today, that we would keep in a special room because they took up so much space.
BM:
And by a pit freezer, you mean a deep freeze?
JK:
Yeah, that’s right, yeah. And so I grew up – my brothers didn’t – but I grew up as the oldest,
you know, doing a lot of that providing for the family. Then we moved more to a town
where they cut grass and worked in grocery stores (all of which I did too) in the summer.
But I worked just about every day, and with a trap on you worked – it was weekends and
everything.
BM:
Sounds like having a dairy cow.
JK:
Yeah. And I milked cows by hand when we lived on the farm, until I was 12. And then I
worked on farms in the summer, but by then the farms that employed us were milking with
automatic equipment, and milking 100 cows a day; big, big operations. And I liked that too.
I like the smell of fresh hay, I like using my muscles, I like being out in the sun, I like being
on the farm. By then, using heavy equipment before you could drive at 16 you could be
driving powerful machinery, and very dangerous equipment on the farm; and I liked that. In
fact, if my father had owned a decent farm, I might have never gone to college or certainly
wouldn’t have left afterwards.
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�I liked the rhythm of farm work, and I like the smells and the connections and the meaning,
the depth, and the – I don’t want to call it spirituality, but the meditativeness of it all. It was
very meditative work; I never had more time to think than when I was plowing. You don’t
have that much time to think around a university. Much more time to think when you’re
doing something – all you had to do is every five minutes just lift the plow, spin it around
and drop it. I loved plowing at night, in the spring with the odors and the smells and the pull
of the plow. Before I left the farm in Montgomery at age 12, they wouldn’t let me around
heavy equipment. But the farmers, they were so poor, they didn’t have much equipment. I
used the last two draft horses they had in a couple of generations, they could remember the
names of all the draft horses: Tony and Burt because they were safe. And I would harrow
corn with Tony and Burt and do things like that, that were slow and boring – while they
would be on the expensive equipment, and the high status equipment, the tractor (and the
more dangerous equipment).
BM:
Um-hmm.
JK:
And the smell of horses, and being around horses that weighed then, probably ten times as
much as I did as a skinny ten year old. And that gentleness and that power and that
predictability and that loyalty: both literally and figuratively. Draft horses are, you know,
deep in my memories – symbolically as well as just fond memories. When people talk about
ice skating and horses for fun – I just associate that with work, you know. Once the ice
would freeze on the Susquehanna River, I’d go out and I’d skate five miles before school,
just checking the muskrat traps through the ice. So ice skating and horses, that was work
(not un-fond memories), and of course trucks too. And now trucks are these, you know,
“boy toys.” You know, I can remember pickup trucks in the ’40s that were rough, nasty,
uncomfortable, and there were dozens of parts on those trucks that have developed a taste
for human blood; they would bite your fingers around the tailgates, and they were sharp, and
nasty and mean! Nothing cozy about a bloody truck.
Well and there’s nothing cozy about Holsteins either, and a measure or a mark of becoming
an urban world is how people romanticize Holsteins. You know, after the first 10% of their
life Holsteins aren’t very playful, you know, it’s hard to have much of a relationship with
them. They just line up and you pull the milk out of them, and then shovel away all their
crap and put it in the manure spreader in the spring (which was really back-breaking work),
shovel the food into them. And most of it became manure; about 5% of all the silage and
hay you’ve worked so hard to store up for them and feed them, ended up in milk. Most of it
ended up in back-breaking feces to haul out and put on the field. But you know you learned
the rhythm of working a fork and using your back and spinning your body. And I must say
when we’d come back from Sunday Mass often, as a kid in the winter when the cows were
in underneath the barn in a (mostly) covered barnyard –
BM:
Bank barns?
JK:
Yeah. It was a big – you know Pennsylvania barns – this was a serious barn. There were a
couple of cows, probably 30, they milked by hand. And I’d put some fresh straw down and
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�bring them over on the south side where there would be a window; and you know, they
would plop down and I’d lie against the cows and read – they generate so much heat.
There’s never nothing going on inside a cow’s belly. I mean it is like New York traffic at
noon! I mean there is bubbling, and gurgling, and gas, and belching; they are always
chewing, and farting, and gurgling. And it’s really kind of content to just lay on Sunday,
when you didn’t have to work (until you had to milk them by the time the sun went down).
When it would be sleeting and nasty outside, to lie against a cow and read; and I would do
that.
BM:
Your comments and your stories are so sensuous in a way that is not just milking the cow,
but everything associated with it. You know, it’s no wonder you have such connections with
natural resources, with the kinds of feelings and emotions that you have in just explaining
life on the farm.
JK:
Um-hmm.
BM:
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it described quite that way.
JK:
Well, even milking cows by hand – I mean I still have the forearms of a hand cow-milker or
a piano player. That’s about the two ways you really get gripping forearms that way.
There’s almost nothing physical that I ever would shut down on than milking. You can only
milk a certain point, and then your hands would cramp up. You’d go in for breakfast and
you couldn’t hold a spoon. Your hands would just be knotted. And that would be on the first
cow and a half or two cows; it takes incredible grip and strength to hold and strip those
teats. And if you’ve ever looked closely to the back of a cow – the hind, where the hams
meet the stomach cavity, there’s a piece of skin, and you can pull that down and put your
head up underneath there when it’s really cold. And you can put your head up right next to a
cow, and of course your ear is right next to its stomach –
BM:
Right.
JK:
And you really, it’s like listening to the earth’s core. I mean, seriously. There’s just a lot –
with all the fermentation that occurs in the digestive process, and all the double, triple
chewing, you know, and all the gases (methane gases) are created by that process. Cows
really – a cow is never quiet. Gurgling and it’s kind of interesting. And it was kind of
meditative; you could hear the milk hitting the can: bing, bam, bam. And then the milk
would fill up and it would change tune. And your head would be warm; you’d be against
this animal that (some of them you had to put kickers on to milk by hand).
BM:
What was that?
JK:
They were chain kickers – you would put them around the back two legs, you’d just wrap
them around. It was kind of a clamp that was on their hamstring, their Achilles tendon, if
you will. You put it on a clamp and you just wrap the chain around. And it was loose, but if
they kicked, it thwarted that; it stopped that.
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�And I worked on farms during my teenage years, even though I could’ve worked in grocery
stores for half the time and as much money. And I worked with some real jerks too, on some
farms. Men had damaged little boys inside them that were just jerks; weren’t happy, weren’t
content, weren’t peaceful. And even though they had the potential – they weren’t inherently
evil or vicious if you gave them the benefit of the doubt – by their behavior they often
looked that way. I still liked working out with my body, rather than working in a grocery
store. And I liked the smells and feels out there, compared to being in the grocery store, or
in a garage, or in the mills (which money drove me into when I started going to college).
And I worked in the mills – you know cabinet mills, with all the smell of lacquer and
sawdust, all the noise and toxic you know, steel mills with all the danger and noise and
banging. And that I never, never liked. But I could make money; I could make serious
money there.
I didn’t start out in Forestry, you know. Being the first Kennedy to go to college, I wanted to
be an artist, but my parents wouldn’t hear of it; especially my mother who was very
emotional, and very insecure, and very status-driven, and upwardly mobile (what the
neighbors think). They want me to be a doctor or lawyer; when I first said I liked to be an
artist, you know, “Glory be to God! Jesus, Mary and Joseph you’re never going to make any
money, you’re going to be living with some Protestant girl in Greenwich Village you’re not
married with!” You know – I wouldn’t do that. “You’re going to be broke! We’re not going
to work our fingers to the bone to send you to be some artist.” And I said, “Mom, I can be
an art teacher until I make it.” “No, no, no!”
So I had a really close friend to the family, unlike some of the men that I worked for that I
told you about – but he was a dentist in Scranton, Pennsylvania (we called him “Uncle” but
he wasn’t, he was just a good friend of the family). He was sweet; he was one of the first
men that was really sweet and seemed to be okay with it and everyone else was – he was
just a nice guy. And his son didn’t want to be a dentist and he said, “Be a dentist Jimmy, and
you know, you’ll come on by the time I can start you in my practice; you’ll give me some
time off and I’ll just give you the practice after you work there for five or six years.” You
know, it was job security and a good income and a house in suburbia, but I was having
nightmares about putting my hand in people’s warm, red mouth. Now I’m an adolescent and
I’m sure Freud would have a field day with that!
BM:
[Laughing]
JK:
But I would wake up full of sweat, just terrified, thinking, “Oh my god! I’m going to be
reaching in mouths all day!” Inside a dentist’s office always smelled terrible, and you cause
pain to people. And so I went up to Penn State to interview, and they gave me (this would
have been the summer of ’58), they gave me the test of what I would be good at. It was this
pimple-faced (probably Master’s) grad student psychologist, you know, that has to do the
grunt work after the meeting with the parents. But my parents were such ‘40s product, you
know, early 19th century product, and [he] looked official; they gave them the benefit of the
doubt, to a fault.
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�So he’s looking through my results and said, “You don’t score very high here, being a
dentist. Why do you want to be a dentist?” And I said, “Well, I really don’t.” And he said
(he was very official at first), and then he sent my parents out and then he asked me that
question. He said, “Why are you doing it?” And I said, “Well, my parents want me to and
I’d be working, blah, blah, blah.” And he said, “But are you going to be happy doing that?”
I said, “No, I don’t think so, but I’ll just spend the weekends hunting and fishing and doing
stuff to compensate for that.” And he said, “Well what job would you really like to do?”
And I said, “Well, I’d like to be a forester.” And he said, “Well, look right here, you score
very high on the success chart for that.” And he said, “We have a very good forestry
program here.” I said, “Yeah, I know.” And he said, “Well, I tell you what. Why don’t we
talk to your parents?” And so my parents came in and he brought that up, my mother, “Oh,
glory be to god! He’s going to work out in a fire tower and be living with bears, and we’ll
never see him, he’ll never make any money, he’ll just be a hermit and I’ll never be a
grandmother!”
BM:
[Laughing]
JK:
But my father said, “Well, why do you want to do that Jim?” And I said, “I think I’ll be
happy.” “Happy? Happy, what’s happy have to do with it, for god’s sakes?” [Laughing] So,
the guy said, “Listen, I have to take a break.” So I remember we went out at the HUB, you
know – I think it was the Hetzel Student Union –
BM:
Hetzel Student Union Building.
JK:
And we leaned on the railing, looking down, across campus towards the town, you know, in
that direction (I remember the direction we were looking at, down towards DU, which was
the fraternity I was in when I went to school there). And dad said, “Why do you want to do
it?” I said, “I think it will make me happy, Dad.” And he said, “Well, happy hmm?” He said,
“Well, I haven’t been very happy in what I’ve done most of my life, so if you want to do it,
I’ll support you. I’ll manage Mom.”
And that was the most intimate – my father was very spoiled, very self-centered; the only
child of an Irish immigrant (she didn’t get married until she was in her 30s, and been a
domestic until that point); spoiled him rotten. But he was a nice guy, but you had to – one of
the reasons that I learned to hunt and fish is that was the only way I could spend time with
him. You had to do what he wanted to do. And long before I could carry a gun, I was his
beagle. I skinned all the animals, cleaned the fish, you know, take care of his fly lines, dry
them. I mean I was his page, you know if you will. And he, you know, for a gentleman that
was quite appropriate. But we did spend time together and we got to like and know each
other. But that’s one of the only times where I really thought he understood me and came to
my rescue. So I switched into Forestry and never regretted it.
Although I was getting into Forestry because I thought I could escape a complex world by
working in the trees and not having to deal with people and feelings, and check on my trap
line on the way to mark timber, or something out west. Seldom would be heard a
discouraging word. I never knew I would have to work with people; I was terrified of
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�speaking. I was pretty insecure too. I was running away from things getting into forestry, as
much as I was drawn to, you know, thinking it would be a good thing to do; it would be a
noble area that I would be involved in public service.
BM:
So tell me what it was like studying forestry at that time, in the late ‘50s, early ‘60s?
JK:
It was very much like getting ready for your confirmation. You know, you were taught
Forestry like the Baltimore catechism as a Catholic. This is truth, get it dummy, and don’t
forget it. Fire is bad; you put it out by 10 o’clock, end of story. No debate; there was no
room for ambiguity, much less a sense of humor with my professors or imagination. And the
image of what they were training you for was a driver’s license, rather than a learner’s
permit. I mean, there was none of this continuous learning imagery and what we talk about
now, today, in any stage of education: imagination, taking risks, confrontation, all that stuff
– it’s more talked about than practiced. And it still isn’t as embraced among colleagues as
much as you would think it would with all the lather about it. And I resisted that, you know.
I wasn’t a very good student. I was a C+ student until my junior year, when I said, “To hell
with it! I’m killing myself; I’m working 60 hours a week, you know. I’m smoking a couple
of packs of cigarettes a day; I’m not having any fun.” By the end of my sophomore year we
went to summer camp in central Pennsylvania, I still had yet to go work for my first forestry
job. I’d got back and work –
[End Tape 1 side A, begin Tape 1 side B]
BM:
Side 2, with Jim Kennedy. Sophomore year.
JK:
Yeah, I said, “The heck with it. I’m going to join a fraternity; I’m going to start having fun.”
I went out for lacrosse. I cut back my studying to 40 hours a week, you know, and my grade
point average – I started dating girls. My grade point average jumped. Probably jumped
from a 2.3, was my grade point average at the end of my sophomore year – which was 60%
of the total credits in those days, the way that they would cram so much in the first two
preparatory years – and my grade point average jumped to 3. And I started feeling better
about myself. I think my colleagues, my fraternity brothers voted me into leadership
positions: as Rush Chairman, Social Chairman, Vice President (that I didn’t think I could
do, didn’t want, and was stunned why they were so stupid to entrust me to do that!).
[Laughing]
BM:
[Laughing] What fraternity is this?
JK:
Delta Upsilon.
BM:
Okay.
JK:
And I did well. And that probably saved me more than anything. And ironically, rather than
my grade point average going down for feeling better about myself, it went up. I lettered as
Lacrosse Manager at Penn State my senior year, for a wonderful coach – Pensick. Pensick
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�was the Lacrosse coach; lovely young guy. Probably he was only about 28; I really loved
and respected him. And I didn’t feel that way about most of my university professors; they
were pretty rigid, humorless. I don’t know. Pennsylvania then, forest products were not the
values of Pennsylvania forests in the ‘50s, and they behaved like it was. They were still
treating them like a tree farm, and I knew better than that. And it was no spirituality about it,
far from it. That was considered touchy-feely crap. And so again, even at that stage I
couldn’t think openly and discuss openly my relationship with forests.
BM:
So how did – with Delta Upsilon –
JK:
Yeah.
BM:
How did that start to change? I mean, were there mentors there? Were there people that you
looked up to, or?
JK:
I had some good brothers (as well as some real jerks). You know, we went through a brutal
pledge process a humiliating pledge process. But you know I knew how to do that stuff. And
as a result, afterwards when we went into the Forest Service and all the male rituals that
would, you know, intimidate and anger some of our male students (and especially the
females), I knew that stuff. I knew it didn’t last forever; I knew it was, you know, kind of
cheap rituals that males tended to do in initial bonding activities. So I went through that.
But no, it gave me a community in a huge, impersonal place like Penn State. And you know
how important that is. And I think it did that, and it gave me a sense of confidence that I
could be as good as these guys in almost anything, and they all came from (seemed) better
backgrounds than me. I came from as lower-class as probably, a lower class than 80% of my
fraternity brothers and pledges. And yet, they thought I was more than okay. And you know,
so for leadership and confidence, that was a real boost to me. As again, I wasn’t a very good
undergraduate student.
There was one professor at Penn State who saved me, by the name of Bob McDermott, who
appreciated a sense of humor. Most of my professors did not like being questioned, where
Bob just loved questions and kept, you know – like my educational method is just begging
students, encouraging students, teasing them, confronting them to open up and get involved
in some kind of a dance, rather than sitting around like a bunch of toads, taking notes. And
he became one of my champions and he got me back into a master’s program at Penn State.
My grades, even my success in the last two years hardly pulled me up. And a lot of the
professors still identified me as a trouble-maker and an annoyance, where Bob respected
me. And he had clout – he was Assistant Department Head by then – and he got me back
into, after three years working for the Forest Service in Oregon, got me back in.
Now the first summer I had was my junior year. It was at Rogue River National Forest, on
the ranger district where I became permanent. And when we came back, driving back (two
of us in a – it would have been a 1953 Oldsmobile) we plotted a course that brought us
through Cache Valley. We were driving six hours on, and I ran into two Utah State
graduates: one was a summer job person; the other one had graduated three or four years,
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�five years ahead of me and was a permanent employee on the district I was in in Oregon.
And so I heard about Utah State University and about Ted Daniels stories and everything.
And so my buddy was asleep, and I had such low expectations of Utah – when we came
over from Tremonton we didn’t take the cutoff, so we went to Brigham City.
When I came up Sardine Canyon, I was trying to wake my buddy up. It was in September
and there was a little bit of snow up in the high country and the aspen had changed. And I
had expected sage brush and salt flats, and I was stunned! You know, we had just come
across the Snake River Valley in southern Idaho (which is not nearly as impressive as this
mountain range). And then I saw the university and I drove around and I couldn’t wake my
buddy up, he was out of it. We, by that time, probably been driving 20 hours from Crater
Lake. And then I went up the canyon, it was a beautiful day. I was just astounded at how
gorgeous it was. And there was water running in the streets, water running down the canyon.
And then when we finally got to Bear Lake, it was in all it’s blue glory, I finally pulled over
at a view point and got Bob up – put a cigarette in his mouth to wake him up!
BM:
[Laughing]
JK:
And I said, “Look at this!” And so I just thought, “If I ever have a chance to come back to
this place, man I am going to take it!” So I think of that, oh, 10-20 times a year. And here I
am retiring from Utah State University. But it really had a profound impact on me.
I remember when I was back about three or four years later, after I got a permanent job on
the Rogue River and then I was back at Penn State. We were sitting around in an Ag-Econ
class, after an Ag-Econ class a bunch of went to get a cup of coffee at the lounge in the
building and we were talking about great places. And I said, “Bear Lake, Utah.” And there
was a student there whose parents were raspberry farmers, who was from Utah State (he was
getting his Master’s degree). And I remember how he perked up, because we hadn’t talked
about much of anything – he was a pretty quiet guy. “I live there!” You know, yeah. So I
fell in love with this part of the country.
But I got a Forestry degree also so I could come out west, you know. My class of people
never came out west unless you were getting paid; never went to Europe unless you were
wearing a military uniform, you know. So I wanted – as much as my imagination could take
me, in terms of seeing a part of the world – it was coming to the west. I mean I dreamed
about the west from all the hunting magazines.
In sixth grade I was fortunate to have a teacher – she never married – in the summer she
would come out west (by herself or with a friend) and tour the parks. And she subscribed to
Arizona Highways, which in 1954 is colorful and is imaginative and as beautiful a magazine
as you could hold in your hands. It was gorgeous! And I would just dream; and if I did my
work quick, and early, and as prudently and fast (which I could do when I concentrated), it
was a little nook that had cushions on the floor. You could get up and go back there and read
what you wanted to read. And she’d always have her magazines there. So that had an
influence on me wanting to come out west. And I decided that by, well before I was 12.
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�BM:
Hmm. And that would be probably original art on those Arizona Highways because color –
JK:
Well it was color photography, it was incredible.
BM:
Oh was it? Okay.
JK:
Oh, for the ‘40s you couldn’t see the color photography. I mean National Geographic was
still all black and white.
BM:
Yeah.
JK:
You know Saturday Evening Post didn’t have nearly the – Life magazine didn’t have as
many. It was great color photography.
BM:
Hmm.
JK:
Called Arizona Highways.
BM:
Absolutely amazing.
JK:
It was really great. And so that just haunted me, those pictures haunted me. And of course
all the sunlight and red rock; such a different country. So I wanted to come out west. And I
never considered a job any place else; I was offered a job for Pennsylvania State Forests and
that was nice, but that was backup.
BM:
And you mentioned Rogue River National Forest and you said Crater Lake. Is that the
Crater Lake District then?
JK:
Well it was up next to Crater Lake. The Rogue River goes down stream and then it jumps
over to Ashland and places like, yeah Ashland and it jumps around, like a lot of those
forests do. The supervisors’ office was Medford; our first son was born in that hospital in
Medford. I just loved that forest out there. There were times I felt guilty. I was a bachelor
for the first year out there and it was just wonderful.
I was the youngest Scout Master in Oregon and we had about 12 loggers’ kids (maybe one
or two might have been Forest Service boys). And you know I’d take them out at least three
times a month in the summer. We roamed all through those hills and it was just wonderful to
work, wonderful to be there. A bit lonely because Kathy and I had been pinned before I
went out there. And then she came out for a year. And I took a year’s leave without pay
(educational leave). Happily they kept us on medical insurance because we had our second
child. We didn’t realize we were pregnant with our second child or we might not have left.
But I went back to get a Master’s degree in Outdoor Recreation because I could see that was
important.
BM:
And that was at Penn State?
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�JK:
Um-hmm. I could see that very few people knew what they were doing, and even less of
them seemed to care about the value of recreation. I realized, working on the Rogue River,
that I knew lots about silviculture and ecology but very little about people. And that was
beginning to fascinate me. Plus my girlfriend and wife was a psychologist and brought out
all of her Freud books and everything about psychology – which I never would have read as
a forester. But there was not much to read in that little logging town of Prospect, Oregon
(there was about 800 people): one bar, one grocery store, and one gas station, and a high
school. And I just got interested in that.
Then in the ‘50s and ‘60s as far into the social sciences you were allowed to go in natural
resources was economics and micro-economics, at that – which is even less involved in
people than macro or developmental economics. So I didn’t really want to be an economist,
but I was so naïve, I didn’t know that. You know, so I just dutifully followed – and
economics is so demanding with all the mathematics and conceptual thinking that you didn’t
have much time to wonder whether this was it when you working so hard just to understand
it. But by the time I got my PhD I was ready to branch out more. Even though I got my PhD
in Economics, I wouldn’t have gone to Virginia Tech (it was called VPI then) unless I
trusted my major professor; and we had a verbal agreement that he’d let me take Planning
and Sociology and other courses, which he did.
BM:
Um-hmm. And who was that professor?
JK:
That was Larry Davis, who I ended up talking him into coming out to an interview at Utah
State in my last year and a half of my PhD program. When the dean was hounding him to
apply and come out for an interview, he said, “Who in the hell wants to go to Utah?” I said,
“Larry! Logan!” I was just passionate in these descriptions in what a great place it was. And
then he gets up – we’re in a Rough Rider bar in Washington National Airport – and he
walks out into the hall and calls Thad Box at Utah State. And I’m sitting there looking at our
two beer mugs going, “You dolt! Here you are talking your major professor into going out
to interview. He’s going to leave you! What the hell’s going to happen? This is really poor
career planning.”
But we loved and respected each other, even when I was a grad student. And our families
were very, very close. I’m coming back through here in July to go up to his and his wife’s
50th wedding anniversary at Flathead Lake. Ironically, they live in Spokane, not far from
where our son lives. Because our kids were raised together; our kids are as close to their
kids as, you know, as either family’s cousins. We spent a lot of time together. Even when a
lot of his colleagues and my fellow grad students said, “How do you pull this off?” You
know, and it was the old ROTC dichotomous, mechanistic thinking: you don’t shoot and
fraternize with the troops, especially if you’re going to send them out to battle – whether it’s
with a machine gun or standing up in front of your dissertation committee, you know!
[Laughing] You couldn’t mix rationality with feelings. Which is just dumb, and we never
bought into that. We’ve always been close and he was a very tough – he had four PhD
students and only two of us made it through.
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�BM:
Whoa.
JK:
Yeah. That was pretty standard in those days; the survival rate was not that great.
BM:
So what year are we talking about when you finally finished your PhD?
JK:
That would’ve been ’69. I was on the faculty there for two years then came out here.
BM:
You came directly to Utah State from there?
JK:
Yeah. And I’ve never gone any place else. Now eight of the 38-39 years I’ve been at Utah
State, I’ve been out of here; and usually on foreign assignments. So it’s given us an
opportunity to go see other parts of the world and come back to your country and your
university different than when you left. And seeing the place you’re returning to differently,
for better or worse.
BM:
What are some of those places you visited?
JK:
Well, the first sabbatical was a year with the New Zealand Forest Service, on a national
New Zealand fellowship. Then I got a Fulbright at Trinity College, Dublin; and that was the
last year that we were together as a family. Both of our sons were students and Kathy was a
research assistant. The university started in 1605 – oh excuse me, 1590. So that’s about 15
years before Jamestown Colony. And it feels that way. It feels like going to school in the
Vatican: ancient university, wonderful place. And a wonderful city – in ’83 Ireland was still
very much a peasant society. They called it “Dublin town” then, and it felt like a town. (As
did Washington D.C. when we first started going there in the ‘60s, before it became so big,
fast, impersonal.) But, no it was a wonderful place to be.
And after that I went to the Wageningen University in the Netherlands in ’85. Then I did a
sabbatical – I was a special assistant to Mike Dombeck with the BLM. Then they asked me
to stay another year, so they just bought out my contract. Then we went back to Wageningen
for my last sabbatical, for a year. In I think it was something like ’03 or ’05 – something like
that.
BM:
How do you spell that university?
JK:
W-A-G-E-N-I-N-G-E-N. It’s Wageningen. The “g” is a [makes guttural sound].
Wageningen.
BM:
And in all these places, as far as a sabbatical, was it primarily economics that you were
working on?
JK:
No, no. I’ve never been a very disciplined economist. I taught it and did it because I had to.
But I’ve always been interested in organizational behavior and the ability and inability of
traditional cultures, like foresters in the Forest Service, to adapt to changing realities of an
urban, post-industrial society. That valued non-market goods, which really made my
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�economics less and less potent. And I never was a good economist. So many economists are
so anal and so judgmental, they’re kind of intellectual Jehovah’s, you know. They really talk
and think like they know what the hell they’re talking about, which makes me suspect of
any group like that.
BM:
[Laughing]
JK:
And I didn’t find them very good company, you know. They were so anal, and so sure of
themselves, and so narrow and so irrelevant that I just moved in another direction. I used to
call myself an economist of sorts, and often introduce myself as a forest economist that’s
been in recovery for 12 years or something! [Laughing] I didn’t want to be an economist,
but I didn’t know that. And I trusted my elders too damn much. But they gave me their best
advice, they were even more ignorant than I was and didn’t realize it. So, no economics just
got me started and allowed me to get in a university and earn my keep for the first five
years.
BM:
So go back to that, you mentioned coming to Utah State. Tell us what that was like. And the
year again --
JK:
Well I came here because this was a multiple-use oriented school. Timber wasn’t king here
– look out the window. I mean Utah State could never justify itself on board feet; maybe red
meat. And as a result, I think the first outdoor recreation course in the world was taught
here; certainly I think the first in the country. They were very multiple-use oriented.
I also came to Utah State because they weren’t under the thumb and the influence of an
agriculture college, which was so conservative and so reactionary, and so inflexible in their
inability to adapt. Plus, they were always the ones out, you know, throwing the stones at the
people protesting the war and other things that I believed in. And so when we came here, the
College of Natural Resources was the most liberal college on campus, including HASS
(Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences) – with such wonderful people like Aldo Leopold’s
last grad student, Stokes, which was really ironic for a northern Utah cow college. Of course
“liberal” is always relative here. But that was a big attraction. And there were a lot of
refugees here from large universities that came to Utah State as professors for the right
reasons: they were tired of the universities of Wisconsin’s or Penn States, regardless of their
supposed qualities and rankings.
You know, this last weekend we graduated one forestry student – we had to limit for every
two people that applied to summer camp, we could accept one. We could only hold 30
students and 60 would want to go to summer camp – this was just Forestry. And we were an
academy for the agencies; we trained range guys, wildlife biologists and foresters for the
federal agencies. And we wouldn’t have thought that, but we behaved very much like a
WestPoint. It was a much more liberal WestPoint than most. And they were good people,
and it was a good community, good departments, a good college.
BM:
What departments were there at that time?
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�JK:
Well, there were three: there was Range, there was Fisheries and Wildlife, and there was
Forestry (that soon became Forestry and Outdoor Recreation).
BM:
And were you responsible for teaching some of those Outdoor Rec courses at that time?
JK:
Ironically, no. They had a huge Recreation contingent here, which really attracted me. I was
an economist and I was a bridge between economics and outdoor recreation for them. I
taught Policy and Economics, primarily, and Principles of Forestry because I always taught
Principles of Forestry as a social science. And nobody wanted to teach that, plus I could get
to the students early in their career, when their minds were open and when they were was
still romantic idealists; and give them confidence and context to stay that way throughout
their rational education.
BM:
And Principles of Forestry is like a freshman level course?
JK:
Freshman or sophomore.
BM:
Okay.
JK:
We had five Principles courses: Principles of Wildlife, Forestry, Range, Outdoor
Recreation, and Watershed.
BM:
Okay.
JK:
And I taught Forestry, which was the biggest. It was a general education course also,
because there was enough social scientists on the general education committee to recognize
what a broad course it was. I used to fill the business auditorium – which was the biggest
auditorium (well maybe there was a bigger one in Old Main). But it was almost 300
students. I’d have a whole flock of TAs.
BM:
And the breakdown was university-wide?
JK:
Yeah, but you know, all the forestry students had to take it and a lot of the other natural
resource majors took it. And about half were natural resource majors, half were across
campus.
BM:
Wow! That is different. You know, when I think of Principles of Forestry from other places
I’ve been at, and in talking with other instructors, it was very much –
JK:
I always taught it as changing relationships between people and forest ecosystems, and how
important culture was in shaping your relationships – as my rural culture in the 1950s was
shaping my relationships with traps and hunting. And I was teaching in the ‘70s and some of
my students said, “Well you don’t look like a hunter! How could you hunt? Blah, blah, blah.
Didn’t it bother you?” “Well yeah, sure!” And also you know, I said, “I was learning life
skills. I didn’t know if I’d ever live through between 18 and 24 – my draftable age. I fully
expected being able to shoot squirrels might save my life and the life of my buddies, plus
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�keeping the world free from evil.” I couldn’t remember years when there wasn’t a war: we
were either finishing one up or talking about the next one. I remember when the Korean
War broke out, I counted on my fingers, you know. I was eleven when it broke out, how
long would it have to last before I could be drafted into that place. And they just didn’t get
that, you know. I mean they thought that they could avoid killing other people in the name
of their country – which has its bright side and its blessings of course. But I thought I was
going to end up shooting people; and do it efficiently, without letting my emotions get in the
way. So if I couldn’t pop a deer, what was I going to do when people were shooting back at
me and my friend was screaming because he had his shoulder blown off? So, you know,
they didn’t get that. They get it less today.
BM:
So this Principles course that you taught – that’s a fascinating approach as far as the
relationship and not just the products –
JK:
Well, I got into forestry because of relationships. Even the very pragmatic, technician types
in forestry – most of them got into forestry out of romantic relationships. And yet they had
that beaten out of us, we couldn’t respect and nourish it, and even elevate it, throughout our
education and our professional development. And I tried to get ahead of that. And every
principles class I’ve taught has always had a strong element of professionalism woven
throughout the whole course; a major tapestry, you know, cross strain and pattern. And I’d
say that professionalism is three components: a trilogy of caring, knowing and doing.
For the first day of all those Principles classes, including the last two I just graded here a
couple of days ago, the first day I’d ask them to define professionalism. I’d ask them, “How
many of you in this class plan to be professionals in four, five or six years?” All the hands
go up. This is the way I seduce them and co-op them. So I’d say, “Well, you want to be a
professional? How many want to be a good professional?” And all the hands go up, you
know. And I say, “Well, what’s a good professional? Most of you have met good ones and
bad ones, so tell me the characteristics of professionalism.” And they’ll throw about 20 of
them at you. 80-85% of them will be characteristics of good people in our culture:
trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly – you know the Boy Scout characteristics of a good
person. But the difference between a good person and a professional is confidence, and
that’s in their mind of things they keep mentioning. And I’ll talk to them about, “Well,
would you rather have a dentist you like or one that can put fillings in your teeth that don’t
hurt and stay there?” Well, alright, you know. “How many of you have had teachers?”
(Because that’s a big role model, positive and negative role models that you’ve experienced
as professionals.) “How many of you have had teachers that were good guys and gals, but
weren’t competent? How many of you have had jerks, but really did teach you something?”
Alright, so we’re back and forth on that. And so I say, “Alright, how do you want me to
treat you people? As post-high school students or as emerging, young professionals? How
many of you want me to treat you as post-high school kids?” [Pause] “How many of you
want me to treat you like emerging, young professionals?” You know, some of the hands go
right up like this. And I say, “Okay. I’ll do that, I want to do that.” Quite honestly I’d do that
even if you told me you didn’t want it. But I said, “You know, this requires more of me and
more of you, if you want me to treat you with that respect and with that kind of information.
And it has higher expectations than you might otherwise get.”
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�So within the first week then, we’re defining professionalism as these three characteristics.
And I said, you know, “Most of you here want to care more. You’re here to really increase
your competency in caring, or knowing, or doing.” You know, and it’s the “knowing” part,
the cognitive part, the rational part. And I said, “The ‘doing’ we don’t actually teach you
much anymore, with field trips and stuff that I had ad nausea as a kid, as a forestry student.
You’re going to get that by summer jobs. And we’re really going to encourage you to do
that; it might be uncomfortable, you might not make as much, blah, blah, blah. But you’ve
got to do that.” And whether it’s teaching summer schools or camp if you want to be a
teacher; if you’re an engineer, getting out and doing various things in engineering or natural
resources. Because again, at least half or more of the students aren’t natural resource
students.
And I said, “Then there’s ‘caring’. We don’t teach you how to care here.” Usually it’s the
opposite. But I said, “That’s important. How many of you know what profession you want
to be, you know? How many of really care?” We talk about caring and I confirm how
important that is. And how, if you’re not careful in all this pursuit for knowing, especially if
they’re taught the traditional male rationale of dominating everything – that you could
squeeze the caring out of you; don’t let that happen, that’s precious. And I’m telling you and
I’m honoring your already moving quite forward. I ask them, “How many of you feel
competent as an emerging, young professional?” Most of the hands go up. I said, “Well
look, here’s the caring part. You told me you were caring and that’s huge! You’re not
recognizing and respecting that. You have to do that, because we will not do that in
academia. So this is your personal responsibility, you cherish that. Not only that, that’s
going to drive what direction you go and more important than that, it’s going to keep you
from burning out, you know. It’s not going to be the ‘knowing’ that’s going to cause you to
burn out and give up; it’s going to be the caring and how you manage your feeling
relationships and your passion, and your forgiveness and your tolerance. And that’s huge for
adaptability as well.”
And I wanted to get to them early on that, because by that time I’d realized how important
that is. And you get into nursing, police work, teaching, engineering usually for caring. And
most of you, if you get into it just for the money – that’s not very romantic in a way – but I
don’t find that the case in most people; even accountants can be romantic about it!
[Laughing] God knows how, but they seem to.
And so I want to recognize that, endorse that and enforce that. And I want them to think
broadly and liberally too. So it was a very conscientious attempt for me to teach the courses
that nobody wanted to teach: the introductory course. I wanted to subvert – I couldn’t
change my college way of thinking, but I could help put students into their class that would
make my colleagues think and teach differently. But it’s a long-term process. But I’ve
always been in long-term processes, certainly as a forester every tree you plant is a huge act
of faith.
BM:
Right.
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�JK:
So it’s kind of, you know, that’s why I took those big, general education courses. You got
no professional rewards or respect from your colleagues, or university rewards; you did that
in spite of the reward system – which romantics tend to do. And I’ve always accepted my
romanticism as cherished, personal property.
[Stop and start recording.]
[Tape 2 of 3: A]
BM:
Okay, we’re continuing on Tape 2, with side 1, with Jim Kennedy. And he’s just finishing
up his discussion on why the general ed courses that he taught at Utah State were so
important and influential in terms of his vision and his idea of where he wanted to go with
education, and with students, and with colleagues.
So go ahead, finish what you were –
JK:
It was subversive, but first impressions last. I hadn’t been to the graduations for the last
couple of years (because I’m usually out of here, down at the ranch by the time graduation).
BM:
And the ranch is in?
JK:
Tropic, Utah.
BM:
Alright.
JK:
And the dean, you know, put out a memo, “Please come.” Plus this might be the last time
I’m on campus in May, so I went. And the valedictorian said that she graduated from high
school in California (this is our college valedictorian), and she was so sick and so
disillusioned with academia/school was going; she went to Mexico and was going to just be
a bartender in Margaritaville for a couple of years. She ran into a friend of hers that was
coming up to Utah State, and talked to her into coming up. And she took my introductory
course and she said her life changed. And I turned her on to thinking, and feeling, and
excitement. And seeing that finding a profession that feeds your soul, as well as your wallet,
can be – in our society, the way it’s constructed for better or worse – is an opportunity for
joy, and fulfillment and growth; or an opportunity for despair, or in between: just boredom.
You’ve got to choose, what do you want to do with your life? And that’s a big decision.
She’s gone on to graduate school, so that was kind of cool.
BM:
And what area of CNR did she graduate in?
JK:
Shupe escorted her down the isle, so I think it was – you know, I don’t remember. But I
mean she was one of just the general ed students that came in and then switched to our
college.
BM:
That’s amazing.
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�JK:
And that happens, and that’s as close to miracles as you can get. There are lots of theories of
education, but that result that I experienced on Saturday, supports my inoculation theory,
you know. Where you sneeze on them, like with Swine Flu, or with Jesus of Nazareth
breathing on them, “Who’s sins you shall be forgiven,” and they don’t think they’re getting
a cold. I remember one time a student walked into my office – this was in the ‘70s – and
said, “You son of a bitch. I came out here to ski and I ski every Tuesday and Thursday, and
I’ve taken your class on Tuesday and Thursday and I thought I’d cut it.” He said, “You’ve
turned me onto school! The damn snow is melting and I haven’t been skiing!”
BM:
[Laughing] That’s hilarious!
JK:
He said, “You have really screwed up my life!” He said, “Damn! I am really turned onto
this stuff and I’m becoming responsible. And my parents and I don’t know really what
happened!
[Laughing]
JK:
That was the plot. I’ve developed a very humble image as myself as an educator. I used to
see myself as a lightning rod, but you’re really a seed crystal. You know, the solution has to
be charged for you to make major changes in people’s lives. Now, for better or worse, they
usually give you too much damn credit because they feel their lives – the valedictorian put it
(Sivvy was her last name – I forget), but she said, “Her world pivoted” on that course. So
pivotal points is a nice image, you know. For physics or for a ballerina, a pivot point and
angles over pose – that’s nice imagery to me. And you know, part of what you teach you are
a role model and a life force and all the intellectual crap, especially is so important in
economics. You become a positive or negative role model. I used the verb “educate” and
“role model” almost like in one breath. Because you ask people – I’ve interviewed a lot of
people – five, ten, 15 years out of the contact with teacher. And they never remember the
theory, they always remember the person. And as a role model: positive and/or negative, or
both. So you know I figured that out pretty early.
I’m much more humble. And usually when students write me about what an influence I’ve
had in their life – I’ll always say, because I think it’s the truth, not just cause -- I can accept
compliments in my old age now (I couldn’t when I was younger). But I said, you know,
“You came into my life with all of that and more. And I just happened to enforce it, nurture
it, confirm it. And you’re giving me more credit than I deserve, which I’ll take, but I know
and I want you to know that I think you’re giving me more credit. And I’d like you to take
more credit for yourself.” And I was glad there to be the catalyst. A catalyst I think is
accurate and good image. I was glad I was there and I was glad I was the catalyst. But you
had to be ready for a catalyst. And when you look at it, a catalyst is usually not much of the
weight in a solution; it’s a small amount. But the other mass there ready to receive it.
So you know being an educator really requires receptive people. And it might be asking too
much of 19 year olds that have so little life experience. They just don’t have anything to
make it relevant, the things I’m talking about. But many of them do, and they’ll never be
able to come back to me and say I didn’t tell them so.
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�BM:
There is a tremendous passion when you talk about what you do. And it’s not just because
you like the woods, you know, like you hear a lot of foresters talk. You obviously have
talked about liking to be outside and how that, you know, with your ADHD and all of that,
those kinds of behaviors. But I think that’s something else that is just like a thread through
all of what you talked about. There’s that passion for what you do in caring about people
and how that comes out in your teaching – over and over again I hear from students how
stimulating that is. And that is something that not a lot of us have been exposed to. You
know, some of us have had that lucky series of teachers –
JK:
Yeah.
BM:
But that’s, I think a very important quality that you put into all the teaching that you’ve
done.
JK:
Well, if you teach natural resources not as sacred stuff, but as human-ecosystem
relationships, based on what you know – knowing and caring about parts of ecosystems. If
you study natural resources you’ve got to learn about yourself, because it’s relationships.
And you’re pivotal in that relationship and so are the people. And you’ve got to be
empathetic with other people, because without relationship there are no natural resources,
you know. And occasionally when I really want to berate my colleagues here, I tell them
you know, “It’s like you’re saying, ‘We’re the college of traditional marriages.’ And for
95% of the course we teach the husband side of marriages. But in the end we give them a
course in the wife side of natural resources – the wife side of marriage.’” That’s like saying
you teach natural resources here and you give them a human dimension course at the end?
And in wildlife, often that human dimension course is law enforcement? Better give them
zero, than to give them the relationship of the enforcer, you know.
The Conan the Barbarian for right and truth. I said, “No wonder you turn out such
dysfunctional, damaged professionals.” You’ve got to focus on relationship and you’ve got
to learn about yourself if you see yourself in a relationship. And you’ve got to take
ownership for that. If you fear rattlesnakes, you’ve got to take ownership for that, it’s not
the rattlesnake’s fault, you know. If you want change, you better change because the
rattlesnake isn’t. It’s your perception and response and behavior around them – and that’s
true with just about everything. Living in a bureaucracy, living with a crappy provost or
whatever, you know. You’ve got to take responsibility for your feelings about that, and
manage that. You probably can’t change him or the war, you know. That’s not to say you
don’t do something about it; stoicism is only one response, or denial is another that is even
less justifiable than stoicism.
So I really focus on the relationship part and that you’ve got to take responsibility for that.
And I do that in class too. I said, “I expect you to come prepared. You expect me to come
prepared, and damn it, you should. I’m a professional, I’m proud of it and I’m going to
prove to you I’m a good one. But I expect you to come doing the reading. If you don’t come
having done the reading, I’m not going to sound that organized; I’m not going to sound that
profound. And you’re going to have to take responsibility for that; I’m not! I’ve given you
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�the readings, spoon fed them to you. It takes a half hour – most of you spend that much time
getting your hair ready to go out in the world. If you can’t do that, you’re really not an
emerging, young professional that has much of a future ahead of him.” So I beg them, I kid
them, and I’ll confront them. But I can do that fully justifiably and I get away with that.
I grade every one of their exams. They come to see me, not a TA; there is never a true/false
or multiple choice questions in it. That really gets their attention because they know that
weekend before I give them back their exams, I’ve spent 20-30 hours doing their exams;
comments in the margins. That gives credibility normally you don’t get when you don’t
deserve it. You really invest yourself and that counts. They hear so much talk: “I love you; I
respect you, blah, blah, blah.” Show me the beef, you know. Your involvement with them
and your willingness to read – some of them wish you wouldn’t read their questions and
make as many comments as you would and just give them an ‘A’. It doesn’t work that way.
BM:
Well, and you have a vested interest in them. They’re not just [inaudible] sitting in your
classroom: they are living, breathing organisms that are going to go out and change the
world.
JK:
Yeah. And it goes back to the non-intellectuals, the farm guys I knew that taught me that, in
terms of I want to see it raw. I want to see it and wanting to spend time with me or work me,
or do something with me, you know. And get up early in the morning and do it and not
whine about the weather or whatever other things you’re using to limit yourself or protect
yourself. So that’s a form of vulnerability in a way.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JK:
But it’s also a form of accountability that seems to be diminishing, especially in the way we
grade them too.
BM:
What do you mean?
JK:
The greening of the grading system: everybody gets a three-point anymore.
BM:
Hmm. So influence wise – you’ve mentioned a few names along the way – who would you
recognize as your mentors?
JK:
Well, Bob McDermott who saved me as an undergraduate student really did. And he loved
questioning, he loved debate; he had a sense of humor, he was open-minded, he laughed. He
was involved with life in the classroom and in his mind as well as when (I suspect) being
out with friends – which maybe some of my other stick-in-the-mud professors were, but I
never could sense it.
A lot of people that I’ve read, you know. And you know, sometimes it’s a personality defect
for a person that’s talked as much about mentoring and being a mentor, and studied
mentoring as I have – there have been no real saviors other than Bob McDermott in my
undergraduate. And I only had two classes from him: Outdoor Recreation and Range; really
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�the only multiple-use classes I had at Penn State. I was fortunate to be his TA when I back
for my Master’s degree too.
Larry Davis, my major professor and department head here was a wonderful guy; really
bright, intellectual guy. And I think he also saw me as a different personality and thinking
type, and he embraced me for that. Because I think I made him better, and he made me
better. I think we taught each other values and relationships and all the “knowing” part of
the three parts of a professional.
BM:
Um-hmm. Which two are the essence of a mentorship and relationship.
JK:
Yeah, sure it is.
BM:
You’re both giving and sacrificing and pushing each other.
JK:
Yeah, yup. Yeah, and I had some people in some individual classes like Speech class I
stumbled into at Penn State, where the person really forced me to confront my insecurities
and help me – I used to have bladder control problems standing up in front of a group. I
came across some good, positive role models as an educator, but for every positive role
model as an educator I had ten negative ones; but they taught me something. I mean, that
didn’t teach me what to be, but it taught me what I didn’t want to be. And they taught it to
me solidly; and I was sure I didn’t want to be like that. So that really helps you decide what
you want to be.
And there was just a whole bunch of people. I’ve been exposed to a lot of people. My father,
in some ways, was a negative role model; but he taught me stuff even by that – in terms of
relationships with spouses and children – as well as the positive ones. So I’ve always been
blessed by the negative ones. Some of the greatest shocks in my life and disappointments in
my life. Well Thad Box, when he was dean, turned me down for a full professor the first
time I went up. I mean my full support of my committee and my department head.
As a result of that, I turned to the agencies that really needed me in the mid-1980s to put
their diverse, professional and gender recruits, in their post-NEPA [National Environmental
Policy Act]
culture. And we developed short courses where I was – with all the teaching I
did on campus, even when I was teach large classes, I often had more contact hours with 30
and 40 year olds in the Forest Service and BLM, in these one week short courses with
people like Jack Thomas. And these people are ready to learn. Whoa! You talk about a
charge – and that really made firm in my concept and confidence in this catalyst model of
being an educator really was convincing there. Plus, going out on a limb and taking the risks
to deal with feelings that were involved and the emotional, spiritual elements of their
frustrations and successes allowed me to come back and risk doing that with more
confidence back on the class here, when students would laugh or say, “Oh crap, what’s that
all about?” Because these 19 year olds don’t have that much context. Sometimes it’s like me
giving a terrific lecture on retirement planning to 3rd graders over at Edith Bowen
[elementary school on USU campus], you know. No matter how good you do it, I mean they
just don’t care! They’re not ready for that.
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�But these 25, 32, 40 year old combat biologists who weren’t being very successful, and
getting beat up in the agency and often weren’t taking responsibility – talk about a miracle
worker in a week. I mean, we had people come unglued, I mean that just had to really reevaluate their whole context of who they were and what they were doing. Because they were
behaving as these kind of Robin Hoods out there, and they weren’t very affective; and they
were alienating the community and the resources that they gave a damn about weren’t being
adequately protected (as they could and should be). Plus, they were working themselves out
of stomach linings, and marriages, and everything. I mean they really needed to reconsider
their life as a person and a professional, and as a change agent within the Forest Service.
Most of them, of course, didn’t see themselves as change agents, didn’t want to be change
agents, didn’t study to be change agents; they wanted to do it, didn’t know how to do it.
But you know, NEPA put them there to be change agents, I mean geez! And NEPA put
them in there to change the power relationship within the Forest Service. And most of them
didn’t think they were into power – which they all were, they were just in the closet, even to
themselves. Of course power is your ability to change the world, change things; that’s what
power is. And most biologists and these specialists think that power is something that
capitalists and generals and people that they don’t admire and care about are in to, like the
Forest Supervisor.
But just intellectually, and emotionally, and relationship wise to confront them, that was
hugely important to me because it made me work hard. And these 30 and 45 year old,
frustrated, very powerful, intellectual, caring, romantic, idealistic, hard-working people –
they did not tolerate bullshit for long, you know. They would come right at you. And so you
had to be relevant and you had to be true. I mean you had to be true and honest with them,
even though initially they would rebel against it and didn’t like it. And I was; and the team I
put together was.
You know I just threw away the plaque that the Forest Service gave me for doing that – put
it in the trash can. You know, it’s just a piece of wood and brass. But you know [inaudible],
I’ve got the memories.
BM:
Right.
JK:
But kids aren’t going to experience it. It was signed by – Max Peterson signed it. Anyhow,
I’ve always seen myself as a change agent and a revolutionary, but I’ve done it indirectly,
like planting trees and things. I plant seeds and stand back and watch them grow. But that
was really powerful. You could see impact and people would, you know, tell you how you
changed their life. But the only requirement was we wouldn’t take anybody into that short
course unless they had worked for a year (or preferably three). We wanted them to really be
frustrated and be experienced and have context, and be ready to take ownership for their
successes and their failure and frustrations. And it did. It worked, it worked and it was great.
And it allowed me to come back and teach in a different way on campus. And even 19 year
olds, that I wouldn’t have had the courage to do, given the criticism and lack of respect for
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�that from my colleagues. And it annoyed a lot of the undergraduates. If I show you my bio,
you know, my true bio – I describe myself as “Coyote the Trickster.” And my students
know that. Three or four times in a lecture I’ll say, “Okay, I’m going to be playing Coyote
with you.” Which means it’s not on the exam and I’m going to be confrontive and I’m going
to be playful, and I’m going to be flipping things on them. I’m going to flip them; I’ll lead
them down a path and wham! I’ll t-bone them with this idea, without airbags and they know
it. So I often tell them, “Hold on to your seat now, I’m going to play Coyote with you.”
BM:
[Laughing]
JK:
And so I think that’s really important. I think one of the most important things you can give
people in an era of complexity and change (like our world is), is haunting metaphors. Never
let them be comfortable with what they know – which was the absolute opposite the way I
was educated, you know. This is it, this is truth, and it’s going to stay that way forever, and
it’s on the exam. But to give them haunting, relevant metaphors I think is great. And one of
the reasons when I think back I don’t see any critical mentors, most of the things that broke
me free to think were often novels and experiences in my past that haunted me.
BM:
Name some novels.
JK:
Oh, god! Everything from The Heart of Darkness to plays like Ibsen’s play An Enemy of
the People. I mean things that were really haunting. Well actually, Miller’s re-writing (or
getting ready for the stage) of Ibsen’s Enemy of the People is a lot easier: it’s like
Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov without the second coming part; or Bernard Shaw’s
Superman without when they go to Hades. All of those things haunted me and I think about
them over and over again. And all of a sudden the relevance to me and my profession just
leap out at me. So I’ve got a lot of kindred spirits that are dead and some that are alive as
well. And I think that’s critical for a professional. And to feel that you can speak to the dead
and the dead can speak to you, I think is a powerful, spiritual connection; and humbling.
So I always was a reader and still am. But good novels – I’m looking forward to reading
everything Joseph Conrad wrote. Lord Jim is a perfect example of a romantic, written
beautifully by a person who English wasn’t his first language: he was Polish. And he did
Heart of Darkness, which is – ah! You never recover from reading that little book. Have
you ever read The Heart of Darkness?
BM:
I haven’t.
JK:
Joseph Conrad.
BM:
Hm-mm.
JK:
You’ll never get over it. Apocalypse Now [film] was based on that and actually the making
of Apocalypse Now,
if you’re a movie person, rent it. It’s called “The Heart of Darkness”
[Hearts of Darkness: a Filmmaker's Apocalypse].
Coppola’s wife put it together while they
were making it. The making of the film – they were all drugged and in that tropical
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�rainforest. It’s no wonder that creepy, haunting, operatic movie came out. And it is operatic:
full of tragedy, and ambiguity, and uncertainty, and blurry edges. It’s an impressionist piece
rather than, you know, an etching. So those things really affected the way I think and feel.
BM:
How are you thinking on the eve of your retirement?
JK:
Well, you know, it’s just something that’s always been in my job description. I knew it was
coming, I’m glad I lived long enough to do it and I still have some health and opportunity
ahead of me. And I’m focusing mostly on being. When we go down to the ranch, we just get
absorbed by that place. It owns us as much as we own it. And Kathy and I like each other’s
company and we’ve been nomads with all of our sabbaticals. And so we trust our ability to
get along together and manage and live in a place and live well. We’ve always done that. So
we’re much less uncertain than some of our colleagues are. And people keep asking us what
I’m going to do. And that’s just the wrong question, you know. I’m focusing on being. I’ve
been doing a lot, and I’ve accomplished a lot. But just being is different than that. And so
often the tragedy of retirement is so many people have their whole self-identity and life built
around “doing” that they don’t know how to “be.” And once you do that, take away the
doing that they’re comfortable with, their lives fall apart. So we’ve got a beautiful place to
go be. And after almost 50 years of marriage we still like waking up together, so that’s
important too.
BM:
Um-hmm, it is.
JK:
And that’s the most annoying question I get asked in my life is, “What do you do down
there?” Well, they’re already off on the wrong footstep if that’s the way they frame the verb,
frame the question!
BM:
[Laughing] Right, right.
JK:
A lot of times I’ll make up stuff just to give them an answer they’re comfortable with.
Because when you start talking about being together, after three minutes their eyes glass
over; they just don’t get it or they’re not interested. “What? You sit in bed for two hours and
drink coffee and tea and talk?” “Yeah.”
BM:
Well having lost the art of relaxation and just that chance to just –
JK:
Yeah. Well the land will absorb you, that’s part of the relationship: you’ve got to let the land
talk to you as much as you talk to it. And I don’t carry a weapon around anymore when I go
out in the woods. And when I see deer – I remember the first time I saw a big buck when I
watched it. And after watching it disappear, realize for the first time ever I didn’t have a
cross-hair on my pupil. You know, I was always watching the deer where I would shoot it.
BM:
Sure.
JK:
I was focusing exactly on that spot. Even when I had no intention of shooting it and had no
means to, or never mind the desire. So that was kind of liberating.
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�BM:
So one of the questions on this long list of questions that is here –
JK:
We can’t go too much longer.
BM:
Oh my goodness! Yeah.
JK:
Because it’s 3:20 already.
BM:
Yeah, okay. Let’s finish this side of the tape and then we’ll stop for now, or stop for this
afternoon.
You know, in looking at – this is just so rich with relationships with people, with students,
with colleagues, with mentors or people who you admire that aren’t even alive or maybe
you’ve never met. You know, part of this project is looking at that relationship with the
place called Logan Canyon (right out here).
JK:
Um-hmm.
BM:
And I wonder if you would just share a few of those memories before we sign off for today.
JK:
With Logan Canyon?
BM:
Um-hmm.
JK:
The first relationship I have with Logan Canyon was that surprising afternoon I drove
through here. Tired and boy, it just woke me right up. I never forgot it, and I was just
astounded. Again, any kind of satisfaction or response to any kind of event is heavily
influenced by our expectations. And as I qualify that, my expectations were so low, the
shock was magnified.
BM:
You mentioned sage brush, and –
JK:
Yeah. I mean I was really impressed with Crater Lake, but I kind of knew it was going to be
spectacular.
BM:
Right.
JK:
Still took my breath away when I first looked at it. But reading the diary of Pinchot’s front
man who went up here in 1895 – what was his name? Copies of his diaries are in the Special
Collections. Have you read them?
BM:
Uh, no.
JK:
Shame on you! You have got to read that! In fact, there’s one great section he says, he’s up
there and he says, “There’s no trees of value up on the mountain, it’s just all aspen.”
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�BM:
Oh!
JK:
Now we’re trying to get it back and worried about aspen coming back. Oh man! I used to
have that as part of my Principles of Forestry course. And he’s got articles written about it,
and people have written – and the Special Collections librarian is a really neat guy.
BM:
Is that Brad?
JK:
Brad, yeah.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JK:
He’ll know who I’m talking about.
BM:
Okay.
JK:
He was working for the Forest Service, he was looking at this public land before it became
National Forest; you read his description of Logan too on a weekend, it’s kind of cool. He
wasn’t from the local culture. But people like that – I never liked history in high school, but
it was never about people and relationships: it was about dates, and deaths, and wars and
stuff like that. So you know, that’s a wonderful opportunity to walk in his footprints up
through this canyon that looked a bit like “All Quiet on the Western Front.” It had all been
lawned off and grazed. It literally looked more beat up than it does now. And I bet you Thad
Box said that when he first saw Logan Canyon about 20 years before I did. You said you
were interviewing Thad. You know, you look up there now and it’s probably in better much
ecological condition than it was 100 years ago.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JK:
I first started just fishing it. But we’d take the kids up there; we’d go cross-country skiing.
We’d use Green Canyon and we’d go up here and ski after school, on real quick day trips
after work was done. We’d tube down it – the canal comes right out at the back of our
property. We’d tube down it in the summer 50 times – day and night. Sometimes 11 o’clock
at night you’d come back, or 10 o’clock at night you’d come back from a party and the kids
would be watching television; it would be a full moon and it would be July and they’d say,
“Let’s go tubing!” “Oh man! Just came back from a party, it’s been a tough. . .” “Come on
Dad!” “Oh, what the hell!” And up we’d go. Kathy would drop us off.
BM:
[Laughing] And you’d come down in the dark?
JK:
Oh yeah. But you know the dark here is so light. From back east, I never could understand
how nocturnal animals made it. Out west, you could see – I could be a nocturnal predator,
damn near, most of the days of the month! But mostly it was fishing, and cross-country
skiing it. We would go up to Bear Lake and come over and we’d come back down Mink
Creek, come back down, you know, down through the next –
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�BM:
Emigration Canyon?
JK:
Emigration Canyon, yup.
BM:
Yup.
JK:
That’s a wonderful loop. We’d do that every season. And my most intimate relationship
with the canyon in a way, was when I was the first person to run summer camp after the
originals: Ted Daniels and Ray Moore ran it all through World War, you know, through the
‘30s and World War II. And I took it over from them in, probably about 1970 maybe,
something like that. And I was the first, you know, guy to do that. I mean the first person to
do that; just when women were starting to come in up there. And I’d ride my motorcycle –
[Stop and start recording.]
[Tape 2 of 3: B]
BM:
Tape 2, side 2 and we’re continuing with Logan Canyon.
You’re on your motorcycle.
JK:
Well, you know, just driving up through there on a motorcycle at 6 o’clock in the morning.
So you’d get up, you’d eat and finish eating breakfast by 7:30 so I could get some leftover
eggs and a cup of coffee by the time I got up there. Early in the morning, quiet, nothing
there – ah! It was gorgeous with a motorcycle.
But you know, most of my memories of course with summer camp are running that old
facility and dealing with young people and all the things that went with it.
BM:
Like what?
JK:
Oh, you know, just feeding them and manage them, and dealing with the issues. You know
the first year I was in charge of it – they always allowed dogs up there. We stopped that
about the second year I was in charge of that because the kids were less responsible with
everything, including their pets. And one of the first Forestry students had became pregnant
and had a baby without a husband here, and she came to me and said, “I’d like to come to
summer camp.” And I said, “Well sure, you have to.” And she said, “But I don’t have a
babysitter and I’m breastfeeding my child. Could I bring my baby to camp?” And in those
things you should go check with the department head and go check with the dean I guess.
But it was just a sense of justice that just hit me, from mostly reading and other things. And
of course being raised as a shanny Irishman too, we always focused on justice and we were
treated unfairly, you know. But anyhow, it occurred to me – I was going to go check with
the leadership – and I thought, “Wait a minute. If we allow people to bring dogs there, how
could we ever say ‘No?’ I mean I don’t have to go listen to these people. And the fact that
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�they told me to qualify it or say ‘No.’ I resented and resisted. And they might tell me that
and I’d have to enforce that stupid decision.” So I said, “Certainly you can do that.”
Well, when the word got out, everyone was you know, upset. And even some of the
students, well. That baby was passed around and in the first week it didn’t know who it’s
parent was, you know. It was part of the group. When she had to do stuff there was always a
willing hand to put that little baby in their backpack or underneath their jacket. We’d take it
out in the snow and everything. And it really had an influence on the culture, as did women.
BM:
How so?
JK:
Well, I mean it made us more human. When male cultures dominated, there was always a
goat. I mean males I think were so insecure they had to put a benchmark, like a brass bench
marker to know what the elevation was, so they could feel taller. And with the women up
there – I remember, this was the first year – I could see the goat that they picked out within
a day or two. And I mentioned it – there were three very powerful women there – and I
mentioned it and I was going to have to intervene. And one of them, God bless her (and I
can’t remember her name) – when one of the alpha males was putting this kid down, she
said, “What needs are being fulfilled when you put another human being down like that?
When you hurt another person, how does that make you feel good?” “Well, I’m not hurting
him” [Inaudible] You little punk, you know, you little shit. “Yeah, yeah I am.” “Ah, I’m not
really. Well I don’t really mean to hurt him.” She just – and then he got red and flustered.
And he made such a fool of himself that [snap], the sport was off!
BM:
Yeah.
JK:
I mean that really, that really hit me. And I just looked at her and she looked at me, and I
had such respect for that woman. And by having a baby there and I remember all the
concern when we were going to bring women up to camp. You know, there was, “Oh! How
are we going to pee in the woods together?” Crap, you know that stuff!
BM:
[Laughing]
JK:
You know it was so absurd to have a bunch of PhDs sitting around the damn table, talking
about such irrelevant, peripheral rubbish! “Well we won’t get to tell jokes together. What if
we’ve got to fart around girls?” You know that kind of a thing. [Laughing]
This was really cute, you’ll appreciate this. And I don’t even mind if it’s on tape. We got
there and we had a huge snow storm. In fact, you can still see mature aspen trees that bent
over from getting about 16 inches of wet snow. And this was in the quarter system, so this
would have been about the 10th of June. It was huge! And most of the young people didn’t
bring adequate footwear. So it was a serious storm and all the trees were bent over. And we
couldn’t even drive out – you know we’re not that far off the highway. The highway crews
weren’t ready for it, everything was shut down. We’re eating breakfast and they’re wading
through snow (this is the first week of class), “Well, we’re not going to go out are we Prof?”
“Certainly we are! We’ve got everyday scheduled, you’re going out. What do you think is
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�going to happen when you’re working in the field? Certainly you’re going to do that.”
“Well, we don’t have shoes.” You know, I had more wool socks, I think, then anybody. So
we started sharing socks. We took all the bread out and used bread bags. I said, “You put
that underneath your sneakers. You mean you came up here without boots? You know, I’m
sorry. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for you. We’re not going to put you where your life’s
at risk, and we’re not going to let your feet freeze off, but they’re going to be bloody cold.
And you’re going to have to take responsibility for that.” “Well, you were such a nice guy in
Principles class.” “Well, this is a different learning experience.”
So all of that. And about two or three days later when we had a chance to go down and get
boots, there was still snow as we’re going up to do our first day of cruising. And the guys
were trying to tell jokes and were on the edge and with caution. And it was awkward, it was
kind of cute. And walking up through the snow – we drove in open trucks then. So we drive
up and someone was telling jokes (I don’t remember that part). But I remember it was
within the first week or ten days and they were trying to learn how to deal with women
colleagues (as we were) with women students. And we’re walking up deep in snow, and one
of the women tripped up in the front and said, “How is getting screwed by a Forester like
spring snow?” And everyone freezes, and then no comment. She said, “Well you can always
count on it being sloppy, but you never know how many inches you get, or how long it’s
going to last!”
BM:
[Laughing]
JK:
Well, I went crazy. I just started laughing, my knees buckled. The guys thought they had to
laugh – I mean that really hit them where it hurt. [Laughing] The guys thought they had to
laugh, but it sounded like rusty plumbing. You can hear them all going [imitates forced
laughter]. They weren’t having fun at all. And I just laughed. And then I felt badly because,
you know I was embarrassing the guys too much. But after that – I mean all the ice got
broken, you know. And it just made better people out of everybody. And a lot of the
stereotypical bullshit got knocked, you know, which was a huge learning experience for
everybody.
But it was exactly the learning experience they needed to go work in a post-NEPA culture in
the agencies. And most of all professors weren’t getting that education; they were stuck in
the old, traditional molds. And they didn’t expose themselves to the agencies. By me being
turned down as a full professor, my reference group shifted. Where what the chief of the
Forest Service and a half a dozen Forest Supervisors I respected, or a colleague that I was
teaching short courses with (like Jack Ward Thomas) – what they thought of Jim Kennedy
as a person, professional meant so much more than Thad Box (or even my department head)
thought. And so that really liberated me from this place, where I could do what I wanted to
do for better reasons.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JK:
And it was about that time when I started to recognize the validity and empowerment of the
puppet model, you know. I never liked people calling me “puppets” for reading the Bible, or
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�calling me a “sheep” you know. I was anything but a “sheep,” damn it. And a “puppet?” No,
by god, I was in charge! Nobody was a puppet master to me. But when Thad really messed
up my life for a couple of weeks after he rejected me as a full professor, I was obviously a
puppet and he had strings. And my only way of dealing with that was to let go of the damn
things. You know, the only way a puppet master has any control over you is you hold on to
the other end of the string. You let go of the string, whew! You know, he’s just flipping a
piece of string in space, which isn’t very satisfying to puppet masters.
And so I decided I was a puppet and a lot of strings were up there, and too many of them I
was holding on to and I didn’t have to do that. But I still recognized I needed respect, and I
still recognized I needed self-respect. But I just went other places to gain that, more than I
did in the past. So I became much more annoyingly independent of this group, than I had
my first 20 years here. But it allowed me to go into the agencies and really do some
powerful work and pivotal work. You know, you have an impact on a student you’ve got to
wait a long time. When you have an impact on a frustrated professional, six years in the
Forest Service (and half of them were women), you know you can see an immediate
response.
And a lot of the reasons the women were having trouble was they were blaming too much of
their frustration and their failure on their gender. Which, you know, wasn’t necessarily it at
all. I didn’t fit into the Forest Service as an early professional. And if I was a woman I’d
have used that to blame too. I’m sure I would have. But having them consider that maybe
the reasons they’re not fitting in and not being effective as a role model, and being
perceived as an ugly American in a foreign culture like the Forest Service – as they would
be if they were in Zambia – behaving like a goddess that knew what was good for wildlife
and was going to bulldoze over anyone that she could to do god’s work, and do it right and
get all the credit herself. And that just may be why you’re failing. It’s just the way you’re
trying to execute; and the image you need to make yourself feel comfortable as a rebel, as
someone that confronts people. And when people don’t respond to you, it’s obviously
because they don’t care or know enough to be as good as you, you know. Which is a great
escape clause – then you don’t have to deal with your consequences (which isn’t very
mature and very effective in the long term).
All sorts of issues like that we had to deal with. Which were hard to say, and really hard to
receive. But boy, I’ll tell you, unlike teaching undergraduates – you always got contact. And
I used to fear as a young educator, negative contact with me: anger, rejection, fury. I did not
seek that out, but that’s contact. That’s intimacy. And unlike the students sleeping in class,
or not showing up, or looking up at the ceiling, or not getting it – just taking notes just to get
a grade. And so I no longer felt fear of that. Because in order to do your job in a week with
these frustrated, inter-disciplinary professionals, you had to make contact quickly. And they
were so primed you could hardly avoid it even if you wanted to. And some of the people
that we first brought in tried to avoid it because they didn’t know how they could handle
that, they didn’t want to disturb people. But by Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, even the
tougher ones just often came around to take personal responsibility for what they were
doing; much more so than they were. And to be more forgiving of themselves, as well as the
system, and not be blaming – exploiting blame rather than keeping it where it belongs. And
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�even if it doesn’t belong with you, even if you’re treated shabbily – like you could probably
consider you were with what you’ve put into environmental education with your job. The
only way you can empower yourself is your response to that.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JK:
The decision has been made, regardless of the jerk or the situation. The only way you can
come out of that whole and more whole, is to decide on your best responses to that. To keep
you going and to be the person and professional you want to be.
BM:
Um-hmm. And it makes you reach further. It makes you reach further than what you think
you have. I’m sure the students felt the same way with forestry camp too. That you know,
we’re being embarrassed here but it makes you look inside and say, “What do I have and
how do I respond to this? And how do I be the better person?”
That metaphor of the puppet strings – that’s perfect. We just hang on to those and –
JK:
Yeah, it’s amazing, especially when you look at the data. For example, we were getting – in
those days inflation was 5%. If you did well, everybody got a 2% raise. Then you had 1% to
divide up for performance, which usually came out to maybe another 2-3% more salary a
year. God! Even if you’re in the money, that’s such chicken feed. When I was being a
consultant, I was making three times as much as a raise in a week; which was really helpful
financially because both of our kids didn’t stay in Utah. One was at Whitman College
(which was really expensive) and one was at Georgetown. So it helped us put both kids
through really expensive schools.
And that really was a test for me, as a human being as well as a professional, to deal with
those very human problems and not pander to them; to just be tough love. But they always
knew that we cared about them and we cared about the Forest Service. You know, Jack was
part of the Forest Service and I, in my heart, never left the Forest Service and never left the
National Forest (which I cherish more than the agency that’s the steward in this point in
time).
So that failure was really one of the best blessings I ever had. Now, as it worked out Thad
took a retirement buyout, Joe Chapman became our dean and he was on my committee who
recommended that I be a full professor. So the first months of his reign, he came and said, “I
want you to go up for full professor.” And this was a year after I was turned down.” I said,
“I’m too busy. Besides, you know what Joe? I don’t give a damn about it that much.”
[Laughing] “I don’t care if I ever have a full professor.” You know, in those days you never
got a raise for it. There was no money. And the year that I became a full professor, there
were no raises at the university – so I got zero! In fact, I said, “I’m going to turn it down and
go for it again next year.” “You can’t do that. Once they give it to you that’s it!”
But anyhow, I mean all that stuff was really important at the time, but it’s like being stood
up for the Junior Prom: at the time it’s really a serious issue! [Laughing] But you know,
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�BM:
within a few months or a few years it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. And now it’s just
kind of funny.
Yeah. Well they say, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
JK:
Yeah, that’s Nietzsche. That can be taken too much.
BM:
Right, right.
JK:
Yeah, and everything that Nietzsche says I take with a grain of – I always take with
qualifications. He was twisted in a way; real bright, brilliant.
Anyhow, that’s some of my summer camp stories and these young professionals. Plus the
other thing (issues) is just dealing with if they were going to be drinking and managing
damage control. You know? “I don’t want anybody driving! I am serious! I’ll be all over
you if I find out a bunch of you went out, you know, got half drunk here and then went up
without a designated driver. I’ll be the damn designated driver, but I do not – do you
understand that? I mean I’m going to be in your face, I’m going to beat you over the head
with a stick when you’re hung over! I am never going to trust you again, do you got that?” I
mean I was just really clear.
[Laughing]
So that the kind of stuff that you just did not want tragedy. And it could easily happen with
that much youth, testosterone and death machines around. But once they got that, and it was
legitimate, they knew that was also an expression of caring.
Okay, I’ll do a little bit more of this some time this week, but my voice is running out on
me.
BM:
We’ll stop for today.
JK:
It’s the allergies too.
BM:
Thank you so much.
JK:
Do you often have to break in these interviews?
BM:
No, not too often.
Okay, so we’re going to finish your interview today with the first part of Jim Kennedy.
We’ll come back later on this week.
Thank you, Jim, for meeting with us.
[End tape 2: B; Begin Tape 3: A]
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�BM:
Okay, we’re here with Jim Kennedy. We’re doing our second day of our interview on Logan
Canyon Land Use Management Project. I’m Barbara Middleton and it is Tuesday, May 5th.
We’re here again on the campus of Utah State University. Continuing onto tape 3, side 1.
Jim.
JK:
Okay. I guess we’re starting with religion and spirituality, although I never separated
religion and spirituality early in life. I was raised in a very, very religious family. And I’m
still God haunted. And probably if I had to classify myself as anything I’m a “Jack
Catholic.” And that’s out of some good experiences I had. I consider all religions human
creations, with people with feet of clay: both those who create it and those who continue it.
And so I never ask for perfection in a religion of anyone I knew – my neighbors or myself.
My grandmother and my mother in my parochial school years had an influence on me. In
terms of my relationship to the land, a lot of the religion training I got in the classroom, and
being required to go to confession once a week when you were seven years old (and you
almost had to make up sins just to have an interesting conversation with the priest). Those
were kind of rituals and a lot of times I couldn’t find spirituality there. Yet, I could come out
of Mass in the spring and hear honeybees up in a fresh, blooming apple tree and just take off
my good clothes and scamper up there and lay in the branches covered with white and pink
and odors and bees and sunlight – and you know you just melt all the barriers on your heart
and in your mind. And you could become part of something much bigger and much more
wonderful than yourself.
So in some ways, searching for spirituality and religion, and often being disappointed
(although not always, but when I was younger, pretty much most of the time), it had me
look elsewhere for spirituality. And I usually almost always found it in nature and solitude
usually – not activity. And out in nature was one of the few places I could slow down and
was captured and interested enough with my ADHD qualities, to find spirituality there. My
first considerations as professions, as a young boy in Philadelphia, were three Ps. They were
to be: a policeman, a politician or priest. And I had good role models in all of them; good,
honest, caring people who had a sense of social service and a sense of self bigger than who
they were, and sense of purpose. So I never had any bad run-ins with any negative role
models in those areas. More with teachers and neighbors and people like that.
And I also stay in my current religion, mainly out of a sense of loyalty. I’m still a Democrat,
I’m still a Catholic, but I’m not a baby boomer. My two brothers and my sisters are baby
boomers; they’ve all become Episcopalians and Republicans and have become embarrassing
wealthy – seriously wealthy. I’m talking tens of millions of dollars. We were all upwardly
mobile I guess, and climbing. I just never wanted the traditional – all the professions I really
(other than my initial kind of pressure to consider being a dentist), I never was attracted to
status or money or fancy cars or fancy clothes or power – in a sense of power in an
organization. I wanted power to change the world when it came to the way we used and
abused the land. And I wanted some power and influence over my own life too. I wanted to
be, what you call today, empowered.
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�But it saddens me that my siblings have betrayed their history. And I don’t know what
they’re going to, but I’m certainly not going to turn my back on a religion that my ancestors
have fought and died for for hundreds of years. To do a makeover on myself, or be more
presentable to my peer group I’m trying to impress. And you know, I wouldn’t change my
political party either. My grandfather had scars all over his body from being beaten with
bicycle chains with fish hooks in them when he was a labor union organizer. And so that
also ties with my orientation with policy.
Although I worked at the policy level, being a special assistant to the director of the BLM,
and being very close friends and respected by a couple of the Forest Service chiefs – I never
was comfortable or impressed or felt in place on top of Mount Olympus in Washington, or
at the regional level in Portland, or down in Ogden with the Forest Service. I always liked
being with the working class, you know. The foresters, the wildlife biologists, the
technicians; they’ve always been my identification group, my peer group. That’s where life
and interest in action occurred. So if anything, I switched from being an economist to
someone interested in organizational dynamics, organizational behavior, organizational
change. Although, you can’t put that on your letter head; no one gets it. You know, if you
say, “administration,” that immediately puts you down with the secretaries. I don’t mind
being there with status, but it’s just plum inaccurate. So I always would put “policy” there
because I didn’t – it would just keep them from asking me embarrassing, annoying
questions. And “policy and economics” – people would salute that and just let you be
yourself.
BM:
So at the time you’re talking about, with the BLM, again – give us the date.
JK:
That was in the first Clinton administration.
BM:
Okay.
JK:
I think it was – I’ll have to check for sure. But I know it was the year before the Republican
takeover of Congress. When that happened, the BLM was so rattled. And ironically, the
Congressman Hansen was the new head of the Natural Resources Committee in the House.
And he and I got along okay; I mean I liked him as a person. I would have even been happy
to have him as a grandfather. As a policy person values – his views on our values, how we
should think about the value and manage of public lands was very much opposed to mine.
But Mike Dombeck, the director of the BLM then, asked me to please stay on a year. So like
a baseball player or something, USU let them buy out my contract and kept me there to
pitch hit for them. Mainly because I was trustworthy and Jack Ward Thomas and Mike
Dombeck liked and respected me, and I could run back and forth between Interior and the
Ag building and we could cut a lot of deals, and they could do it with confidence. They
could come up with an agreement, and they’d just turn to me and whoever was representing
the Forest Service and said, “Well we’ll let Kennedy and Barb, you know, work out the
details.” And you and I, for example, would get together and work out a memo. I never tried
to get a penny for them for research or anything special, and they knew that. So they knew I
wasn’t trying to get into their pocket or exploit the influence and friendship we had together.
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�But even doing that with the BLM, a lot of times I was out in the field doing stuff, if I could
do it. I mean I would look for reasons to get out and work with universities that were
historic, black colleges they were working in partnerships with to try to diversify their
culture, issues.
BM:
In the natural resources area?
JK:
Yeah.
BM:
Okay.
JK:
Well, yeah. But they were geology, but even engineers (any skills the Forest Service could
use) public affairs, for example. It’s much easier to find an African-American interested in
public affairs in eastern shore Maryland, than one of the traditional black colleges there.
Queen Ann: Queen Ann of Maryland or Queen Ann of Virginia? But they were interested in
recruiting people and I was an academic and had respect. And so I would go do a lot of
work for them in that way, just to keep in touch with what was going on out there.
BM:
And did you see that change in the time from then until now?
JK:
Well it was changing then. My immediate supervisor was the assistant director for the BLM
– it was a black, woman, wildlife biologist. Really tough as nails, Brooklyn gal, that I loved
and respected. And she would cringe at using those words. She was a street fighter; although
she had a good heart, but she didn’t like herself very much. She tried to define herself by
what she was doing, and that’s pretty hollow. She loved film and didn’t like going out to
film by herself as much, or going out to eat afterwards alone – and she was a loner. And my
wife was taking care of her father and going up to New Jersey a lot. It was kind of spooky
and some people got the wrong idea, but Denise never came across that we’d be involved!
[Laughing] And anyway, it would insult the promises we made to people that mattered, but
we spent quite a bit of evenings out together having fun and talking about life (as much as
she would do that).
So yeah, I would live a long time at Utah State University before I work for a black wildlife
biologist woman.
BM:
Right. So in looking in your role; I’m trying to understand that a little bit more so that
people that are listening to this get a feel for when you go back to Washington and you are
doing some of these special assignments. That sounds fascinating to me to be able to go out
and look at the kinds of young people that are coming through the program and encourage
people from other diverse cultures, religions, races, whatever; to be able to come to the
field. What do you say to them? How do you attract them to something like natural
resources?
JK:
Well, you try to find out number one, if they have a passion about being a professional, or if
they’re just in the rank and privileged and other things like that – then they want to be a
lawyer, or business person. And usually you can’t capture them because their needs are
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�different and they probably wouldn’t be very good if I did capture them. But people that
want to make a difference, that have some pioneering spirit, that have some attachment to
the land. But an awful lot of African-Americans see the land as the enemy; that kept them in
chains as much as any political, social or cultural stuff. You know, working in the swamps,
logging under miserable, dangerous conditions, working in the mills, working in the mines,
working in the fields.
BM:
Yep.
JK:
I have fond memories about my attachment to the land, but we kind of own some of the
land, or a few people that I knew and cared about did own the land; but it was a big
difference. And it was always a round-trip ticket: if I didn’t like being abused, or come
football season or school, I’d be out of there. And they didn’t have that option. So that was a
hard sell. That was really a hard sell with blacks, especially in the southeast. And some of
them wanted to get out of urban areas, and you could sell them on that. But I looked for a
spark of professionalism and wanting to make a difference. And those who want to entertain
a surprising option that they hadn’t really thought about. And a lot of the people I talked to
were single moms in those traditional, black colleges. And you could talk about the security
that we get and the support that they wouldn’t find in industry. And so I was actively
recruiting them, as well as talking to the people who – when I’d leave would hopefully
continue or increase that activity.
BM:
Were there programs actually growing at that time in D.C. with these agencies?
JK:
Oh yeah. Like Haskell Indian School [Haskell Indian Nations University] in Kansas. And
they had some formal, signed partnerships, and some Hispanic schools in New Mexico –
heavily populated Hispanic schools.
BM:
And you were also seeing then, the nature of the culture in Washington changing with the
personnel that were hired. You mentioned Denise, the black wildlife biologist. What other
kinds of entities within the Forest Service were seeing more diversity?
JK:
Well, I mean initially it was at the entry level and that was part of the problem. The cultural
diversity was gender, ethnic and professional. That’s how I got involved with the wildlife
fisheries biologists in the Forest Service because in the ‘70s when they were starting to hire
women (well NEPA forced them into hiring professional diversity). Presidential
proclamations motivated them to hire gender diversity and ethnic diversity. And often the
only jobs that were available then were not more foresters it was all of a sudden they needed
to hire a lot of wildlife/fisheries biologists. And so without intention and without
recognizing the consequences, they got double whammies: they would hire a black woman
or Hispanic woman biologist, and they’d score triple points, like in Scrabble. However, that
was three often stress points with a person with triple uniqueness trying to fit into the
agency, especially moving the line by being successful on the ground. They were change
agents in three ways; and most had the attitudes and skills, or the expectations of that, and
they were just thrown into the whirlwind and didn’t know it.
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�And many of the line officers and their peers wouldn’t have hired a woman, an ethnic or
professional diversity, if they weren’t forced to. And NEPA and all those legislations were
change agent legislations; they were social experiments. And these poor people didn’t know
that they were being dropped into an organization. They thought they were going to go out
and count beaver or birds or something and wear hip boots for the ten years and shocking
trout. And then when they found threatened and endangered species, their peers would
congratulate them for completely changing their professional lives by making it much more
complex, and slowing down projects.
And they didn’t know how – they didn’t want to do it. They didn’t want to be political; they
didn’t want to be change agents. They didn’t have the right table manners to do it; they had
lousy expectations. So before I went to Washington, mostly as a carry on for my passion as
an educator, I started to look around and the Forest Service (especially line officers at the
Forest Supervisors and Regional Forester level) by the mid-late ‘70s were seeing this dropout rate. And these young people were having such conflict fitting in and being effective in
the Forest Service; they were like very unsuccessful Peace Corps workers.
BM:
Stop for one second. I’m concerned about this tape. [Stop and start recording] We’re fine.
JK:
So I was with a Regional Forester. We used to have a lot of connection. Of course many of
the people down in the Ogden Region 4 office were USU grads. So once a year we would
have a banquet down in Ogden. (Now this is a quick, 15-20 years ago.) I was down there
with a Regional Forester and he was talking about all the new people they were getting:
hiring more people with Master’s degrees, having more science in the Forest Service. And
he also had been talking about the difficulty it was for them to hire and keep good women
and biologists really (many of which came from Utah State University).
And I said, “Well you know, you have science, your science has improved. Let’s take
recreation for example, when I left you guys you were not applying science to recreation;
now you’ve got some of the best recreation researchers on the planet in the Forest Service.
You are doing all sorts of things. But you know much more about the hikers in the high
Uintas than you know about how and why young people come work for the Forest Service
in these new ‘-ologist’, non-traditional positions, how and why they are not effective, how
and why they stay or leave.”
BM:
Um-hmm.
JK:
I said, “You’re not doing any research on that, it’s a folk art. And so you don’t have a
chance until you start finding out how and why that system’s failing. And so don’t tell me
you’re scientific there.” And I said, “And really, does it mean you care more about high
Uinta hikers than you do your own people?”
BM:
So what was their response?
JK:
Well you know, we were having beer and having a lot of fun. And he said, “You know,
you’ve got a point there.” And something else came up and I brought it up again, and he
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�turned – one of those serendipitous things – and he turned to his administrative officer and
said, “Can you give a couple thousand bucks to Kennedy so he can do some research and we
can shut him up?” And he said, “Yeah, I think we could do that.” So I immediately got back
and called Region 6 in Oregon (I had a contact there), and said, “How about if we compare
foresters with your entry-level, one to three years in permanent positions, your entry-level
foresters, range cons, and wildlife biologists, and men and women? Let’s see how and why
they’re fitting into the culture.”
And it really was that often women wildlife biologists had more trouble because they were
biologists than because of their gender; although it’s hard to separate out the two. Wildlife
biologists were seen as obstructionists; they were always telling the foresters and the
engineers and the range cons what they couldn’t do; why they had to spend more money and
more time doing something different, or doing what they normally did a little bit differently,
or make 180 degree turn. A lot of the biologists and a group and individual self-image –
they call themselves “combat biologists.” The Nez Perce said, “Screw negotiations, go for
the throat.” And they had this wolverine with a rabbit by the throat, combat biologist on the
Nez Perce. Well that just set up conflict. And so they were having conflict and they were
taking no ownership for that.
And so I was a forest economist, and not a Forest Service person and not that well known in
the agency, so I recruited Jack Ward Thomas. Because he was a highly respected Forest
Service professional, very good politically and loved and respected throughout. And we hit
it off. And so we developed a one week training session. Well we did the research – I could
give you the reprints – which was the only research done in that area that I know of, in
natural resources; then or since. And of course it just broke my heart to see some of my best
and brightest students come back one, two, or three years after being in the agencies, failing
as a person and a professional, and as an employee. Being miserable, being unsuccessful,
not really helping the land or their people or future generations, and not taking any
ownership for their failure: blaming it all on evil, external forces, men, politics, the damn
foresters and engineers. And that just broke my heart. I mean that was worse than watching
the land erode. And you can’t have healthy land without healthy people managing it.
BM:
Right, right.
JK:
So that’s what really changed my career. And I got involved in studying cultures and the
interaction of culture, cultural change and changing power. And so we developed this
training course that really ran about 80% of the current entry level; within five years the
entry level wildlife/fisheries biologists through that program. And it was known, in some
regions, as Peace Corps training for biologists.
BM:
Did you have a title for that training program?
JK:
Yeah. It was a formal training program; part of the formal wildlife/fisheries biologist
training program, called “Entry Level Training.”
BM:
Okay.
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�JK:
We usually went out and held it on the sites or among the forests, rather than bringing them
to the universities.
BM:
And most of them were in the Pacific Northwest region?
JK:
No, all over – eastern regions –
BM:
Oh, okay.
JK:
And it went to New Mexico; a couple in Region 4 did come up to Utah State; one in
Montana, a couple in Alaska.
BM:
You know, it’s interesting that you make that comment because I remember in Oregon,
when I was there the group that was really being crucified were the archaeologists.
JK:
Them too. And landscape architects and the soft scientists – those “ologists” that didn’t have
any kind of entry level training like that suddenly started showing up at these short courses.
As did an awful lot of mid-career biologists that really hadn’t gotten over the pain from the
way they were treated in their involvement with the Forest Service. And in some cases some
of the people who should have quit and left were those who didn’t. Usually you lose your
best and your brightest in the first three years. Those that stay in often stay in and cope in a
stoic, bitter way. And sadly they become toxic mentors when we send our summer students
out, or young, permanent people or co-op students.
You know, because some of these isolated, ineffectual biologists can be interesting
characters. They’re like Robin Hood stuck up in the Nez Perce – no one likes them but
that’s because no one can handle their vision and truth and devotion to the land. And they’re
all dog loyal to the agency, where I care about the land and the birds and birds and the
cougars. And you can come with that encased, glorious, victimization image of yourself.
And there are always plenty of whining support groups you can get around with alcohol,
especially, to help convince you that you really are the pure of heart and the agency and the
politics and the stupid locals just don’t appreciate you. And that’s how Peace Corps
volunteers become ugly Americans and dysfunctional, and really betray the faith of that
position that they’re in Zambia or Uganda. And we use those examples all the time.
BM:
Hmm. Now was this during a time when the group in the Forest Service (and I don’t know
the exact name), but the environmental –
JK:
Exactly.
BM:
Employee ethics?
JK:
The Forest Service for Employee Ethics. Yeah.
BM:
Yes.
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�JK:
And the current president and CEO of that is one of our PhD students who never finished,
Dave Iverson, from the regional office. Who took all of his coursework at Utah State
University – in Ecology at Utah State University.
Yeah, that was a splinter group that broke off because of the frustration and anger they had,
and sense of betrayal with the Forest Service. A lot of it though was their personal,
professional betrayal. Because we never talked about career development; we talk about
managing all these precious resources out there and the ecosystem – your career is pretty
precious too, and it’s a non-renewable resource if you’re not careful. For example, an awful
lot of these people had this image of promotion of the “Cinderella” model: they were going
to go out and keep their hands pure of politics, they were never going to kiss anyone’s ass or
snuggle up to any line officer; they were just going to work hard, work Sundays, work their
ass off, do good work and their Prince Charming was going to come down in a clean truck
and pluck them up out of the stream and say, “What can I give you? Come to the
mountaintop and pick your career.”
And when you put it that way they’d all just kind of look at you. And some people would
even start crying. And they say, “That’s stupid!” And not only that, it’s arrogant. Because
when you put yourself in that position you set yourself up for a lose/lose position. Because
if you’re not picked up by your Prince Charming, it’s not your fault, you’re being pure –
you’re being a pure Cinderella or Cinderello (if you’re a male). And the whole fault is in the
ignorant, insensitive, bureaucratic, political system. And so not only do you feel betrayed
and unappreciated, but there’s no way you can fix it because you won’t get involved. And
it’s just this death spiral for people and professionals – it’s a tragedy that Shakespeare would
recognize and would make much more poetic than me. But I saw it and it bothered me, and
a few other people did too.
And so ironically when people like Mike Dombeck and Jack Thomas end up in high power
positions, so did a lot of other wildlife biologists. They were so ready (talk about the seed
crystal), they were so ready for us – whether they realized it or not, most of them didn’t
realize it. And initially they thought we were a setup to bring all these wildlife biologists
together for a week at a nice ski resort that wasn’t being used in May; play nice so they
would lay down and let the rock trucks roll over them. And they came in with cohesive and
ready to – “You just try to teach me something, you just try!” You know, you’d see the body
language at the opening night. And normally, when I was younger that would’ve terrified
me, I’d had wet my pants. But I learned that was engagement, and what I always seek in a
group is engagement. And I get less engagement with undergraduates than I do with anyone.
You can’t avoid engagements with serious, involved professionals; they just challenge you.
And if you can rise to that challenge, that’s really cool. And again, it really allowed me to
come back as a much more confident peer among my other peers (who still have Cinderella
models), and often directly and indirectly project that and teach that to their students: don’t
get involved in politics, don’t compromise—all of that stuff that’s just dysfunctional.
BM:
Well and that also follow with then, don’t even come to the table and negotiate; don’t even
bring your ideas and don’t feel like you’re part of a team.
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�JK:
That’s right.
BM:
So how does that eventually affect the perception of yourself, and your whole role within
that agency?
JK:
Yeah. Well, you become disempowered.
BM:
Yeah.
JK:
Bitter. And it’s tragic; it’s a tragedy. We were pretty effective on that, plus we had a lot of
fun. We really did. I am more confident that I changed more lives per capita that way than
with undergraduates.
BM:
Um-hmm. Can you recall one of the good arguments that somebody brought to that
workshop? I mean it sounds like an incredibly engaging week – like an energy drain too.
Whew!
JK:
Yeah. You could think it through and when you represent it in the Cinderella model and you
have Jack Thomas and I doing that, you know, and you get them laughing; and sometimes
we’d act it out. You’d get them; you’d play “gotcha” the whole time. But they knew Jack
and I really, really cared about them and the future of National Forests, and wanted them to
be an effective part of it. We wanted to empower them. And they all considered themselves
scientists – and you would show them the numbers – there were a lot of numbers on this to
look at the failures. And we’d look at the interviews and the survey research results that I
got my studies with the Forest Service. And many of them were part of those studies, and I
made sure the results got back to the participants.
We were playing coyote, you know. That’s when I first started developing this image of
myself in a bio as “Coyote the Trickster,” who I love. That is such a wonderful image and a
god. Christianity is so bereft of the power of having an image like that. I mean, actually
Peter was always one of my favorite apostles because he was so ADHD and wacko! He
wanted to walk on water . . . and what Jesus of Nazareth was just smoking when he saw
that guy as a rock!
[Looking for files] I’m looking for – I had to change all my files around because they’re
kicking me out of this space. And I don’t know where my bios are. Hmm. You keep me
going; I want to find those even if I didn’t want to immediately give them to you because I
know where in the heck they were. That’s normally where I kept them. Huh.
BM:
I’m going to stop the tape.
[Stop and start recording.]
BM:
We’re back on.
JK:
He’s always being caught for his hubris (as the ancient Greeks would call it).
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�BM:
This is the Trickster you’re talking about?
JK:
Yeah, Coyote the Trickster. And we would say to them, “We’re Coyote the Trickster. We’re
here to cause you to wonder, to question things. We’re here to annoy you. We’re not here to
play nice. We’re going to be confrontative; we’re going to be honest. We get away with this
in the short courses because “it will be abundantly clear to you that we really care about you
and we want you to succeed and we want you to figure out ways to finesse and to use Judo.
To know how the organization works, and rather than Sumo wrestling.”
I mean most of these people were the Sumo wrestler model: they were going to squat down
and run up against the bureaucracy. All the engineers and foresters; all the damn men were
reactionaries and they became road kill. And they’d get up valiantly and wham!
[End Tape 3:A; begin Tape 3: B]
BM:
We are on tape 3 and we are on side 2, continuing with Jim Kennedy. Just talking about
Judo versus Sumo wrestlers in how we approach things.
JK:
Well, you know, all things are a relationship. And your relationship with an organization is
huge. And I know this from experience. I don’t know this from self-help books; I mean I’ve
been road kill. I’ve acted out against authority. Back in my bedroom bureau I probably have
40 Purple Hearts from serious injuries in combat with bureaucracies. And they always win,
you know, especially if you confront them with impatience and arrogance. But that’s how
heroes were trained: from the comic books, with our professors, with movies. You know,
this is my alternate – I have my bio here – but on the back I said:
I have an alternate, more honest and descriptive Jim Kennedy bio sketch. I
am Coyote the Trickster. I’m here to annoy and stimulate you to doubt,
wonder, search, so you and I might be more aware and wondering learners
together. I’m not here to teach you to know more or better. I’m here to
annoy and stimulate you to be a learner and not a knower, and as such I
honor your inherent wisdom. As an insecure grad student I didn’t want to
be Coyote at this stage in my career. I dreamed of being White Eagle:
mature, wise, proud, mighty and unassailable, sailing safely above you and
the messiness, complexity and wonder of life, raining truths down to teach
you, with neither of us being learners, not much. Happily I failed at that, it
never worked for the things I considered worth learning, including myself.
I am Coyote the Trickster down here with you and immersed in our own
messy, complex, and mysterious world. And as such I honor you, myself
and together what we search to learn more about.
And you know, I’d give it to them and I’d tell them, like I do my students (I give this to my
undergraduate students) and I say, “I’m going to play Coyote with you now.” And they’d
relax, they wouldn’t feel the confrontation. And I’d use myself and Jack Thomas, we’d use
ourselves [as] examples. We would laugh about it; they’d laugh at me and with me. And all
of the sudden you’d feel them, they’d get had. They’d go, “Oh my god! That’s what I’m
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�doing! Oh, that is really dumb; I have to consider changing!” And that’s huge, to get people
to do that five or six times in a week. But it was going on with people all around them. I
mean people really had “falling off the horse” experiences on the way to Damascus. But
they couldn’t do that unless they had gone through the pain and frustration and be ready to
change. And they weren’t ready to change fresh out of college. They just didn’t have the life
experiences.
BM:
Right.
JK:
And so that was the most powerful educator experience I ever had.
BM:
But you know that comes when you talk about being at the right time to change and having
that experience, but also of being of the mentality to be open to change. Like being open to
learning and realizing that each one of those is a learning experience, and you know, “What
did I learn? Or I’m going to go and repeat this again and again until I finally learn.”
JK:
Yeah.
BM:
You know, so it’s recognizing it and also having found that those years on your feet that you
recognize the experience contributing.
JK:
Yeah and we’d use all sorts of metaphors and examples. For example, we said, “Look, in
America today you all expected to learn about being an effective bureaucrat with soul and
spirit, and a long term resilience on the job. You’re as poorly trained in that as you were in
sex. We don’t formally train you in sex in our country it’s on the job experience. And often
it’s pretty tragic and high risk, but especially if you don’t have the right attitudes to be an
effective on-the-job learner; whether it’s sex or in the bureaucracy.” Most of them don’t
realize that that’s their job. When you go to a foreign country – Kathy and I have spent a lot
of time in foreign countries or as a Peace Corps worker – you’re going to have to do most of
your learning there. But it’s absolutely essential that when you go there that you have
functional attitudes and strategies to be an effective on-the-job trainer. We give them neither
of that here, other than the ENBS programs, some of them. We just give them science and
throw them out in the bureaucracy, usually with the attitude that politics is bad.
Many of our students have the same attitudes toward politics my grandmother had about
sex, you know, it was very Victorian: you only did it as means to an end, you weren’t
supposed to enjoy the process, take a shower afterward, you never talked about it, you didn’t
study about it. And so they would only engage in politics if they felt dragged into it; many
of them would feel dirty afterwards. I mean the attitudes we have about politics and
politicians are the attitudes we had about “dumb blondes” and “niggers” when I was young.
It is biased and bigoted and it’s poisonous to our culture. And we can joke about lawyers
and politicians now, with the same impunity that you used to be able to joke about “dumb
Pollack’s” or “Irishmen” or “dumb blondes” or “black men from the south” or something.
You can’t joke about those things anymore, praise god. And so we have a terrible,
dysfunctional, black hole in the way we disempower our young people in the education we
give them.
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�And not only that, our professors (but our professors don’t know it), they’re like, in many
cases, a bunch of celibate Catholic bishops who are talking to people about sex, you know.
They just don’t get it; I mean they have never had the on-job experience. That’s why they
are often in universities. And look how bitter and how easily some of our professional
colleagues burn out because the bureaucracy doesn’t work in their Cinderella, Robin Hood
mythology that’s totally unrealistic and unfounded. They hold to that because they don’t
have anything else rational. And they don’t consider that a rational part of their thinking in
life. They respond to that emotionally and glandularly: where they use their intellect in a lot
of parts of their personal and professional roles (say with professional colleagues here), but
they haven’t been aware that there is science out there in this and they shouldn’t figure it
out. I mean we were treated the same way when we were trained to be educators as
professors. We had no formal training in that, that’s on-the-job the same way we had our sex
training. We had some good role models and some bad role models, and we bumble around
and try. We don’t monitor it and measure it; we don’t try different learning practices that
much. And it’s not an area where we apply our science. I mean the studies that I did on how
and why entry-level professionals were succeeding and failing in the Forest Service, you
know part of their failure was the poor, dysfunctional way they were educated and role
modeled. So we have to take credit for that.
BM:
So today, if you were working with the Forest Service and you had that job back again, what
kinds of training would you recommend?
JK:
Well to continue what we’re doing. The problem is in all this wanting to get together there
was real suspicion about different professional groups going off by themselves, they thought
they were becoming clannish and not part of the mainstream and identifying too much with
a particular specialty.
BM:
So what are the different professions? Biology [inaudible]
JK:
Engineers, foresters, yeah, and watershed, soils people. And so they pretty much – plus
that’s expensive: it’s a full week. It’s hands-on; it’s expensive. And many of the training
programs have been gutted and reduced and thrown into big groups where they have a lot of
motivational people come in, at one extreme, and a lot of agency line officers come in at the
other end of the extreme, and talk to them about policy and stuff which is pretty boring. And
in terms of life skills and survival skills and really getting in touch with their humanity as
well. I mean that was part of it too. We focused a lot on that. And really you have to love
yourself to be able to love and care about others. You have to take care of yourself if you are
going to have anything left over to care for the land and care for some of your colleagues.
And be a person in the agency that is a healer, rather than a slasher or a “salt on the
wounds,” or someone who just ignores people and walks on the other side of the road to
Damascus when you see someone in a ditch. Because you’ve got your head up in the air, in
theory, or you’re doing important things. So someone is having marital problems or is
obviously having alcohol addiction problems in the way they’re showing up or not showing
up. And just deal with that because that’s good work for groups of people and human
beings. So you can’t separate that from being a good biologist or an engineer. You can, but I
don’t think it’s functional or healthy or sustainable.
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�BM:
So when you talk about the difference in training here at Utah State with the College of
Natural Resources, we’re separated into Wildland Resources and Watershed, and then we
have Environment and Society.
JK:
Yeah. And the whole core educational program that I worked so hard to pull off, where we
were in the vanguard of the world (not just North America), by having core courses and
bringing all of our young people together in initial courses and talk to them about the dark
side of their professional: myopia and pride and arrogance. And we’ve balkanized, you
know. We were Yugoslavia, like Yugoslavia was from the ‘70s through the mid-90s, and
now we’ve balkanized just like Yugoslavia. And we have the Serbs and the Croats and the
Bosnians, you know. We have the same thing with the hard sciences and the soft sciences.
When I really want to confront my colleagues (and I can get away with it as an economist
and as male), I talk to them about the erect sciences and the flaccid sciences.
BM:
[Laughing]
JK:
Some of them just squirm. But I’m playing Coyote with them; because it’s often at that level
and that level of intellectual foundation. It’s at the glandular level: hard science, soft
science, social science, true science. Calculus versus college algebra; how you’re not worthy
unless you go through that. It’s more sinister than substance in that. But it’s very powerful
and it’s a deep undercurrent.
BM:
Let’s bring it a little bit closer to home then, to Logan Canyon in terms of as someone who
is living here and working here, some of the policies that you saw impacting the canyon and
some of the activities that were going on here. You also mentioned that you recreated with
your family up there. So could we talk a little bit also about some of those special places,
and maybe how policy sort of changed those?
JK:
Sure. Well the biggest policy battles I’ve been involved with Logan Canyon from the early
‘70s has been always the highway; UDOT eventually wanting to put four lanes of concrete
up through that place. I think. Maybe, maybe we’ve slowed them down enough – you know
that’s one of the last canyons that doesn’t have major highways slashed through it.
Most of the other stuff is that with all the times I’ve been on sabbaticals, with all the
traveling we’ve done in the summer, I haven’t staked a claim on a watershed or an area
where I’ve become a defender of it. I love skiing on Green Canyon and I really respected
them closing that off. There used to be four wheel drives and snowmobiles up there all the
time. And making it an urban, short day use recreational area for families and everything.
To be able to work a fulfilling day and be in cross-country skis twelve minutes after you
close the door in your office, and ski to the darkness of the evening and turn around and still
see the red glow as you come down; gravity brings you down that canyon. We used to go up
there and ski at night a lot; just a wonderful gift for me.
Most of the areas that I really used are just that beautiful basin below Third Dam, off to the
south. We’d go up towards that glacial circ up there, that beautiful area. I mean that is such
a beautiful area! And it’s just so quick and easy to get to. You know, we’d go up to Tony
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�Grove and we’d hike up there and things like that. When I was director of summer camp and
staying there at nights, I would run at night up through those old logging roads and dirt
roads up behind camp. It was just gorgeous country. Again, I think the land up there is
healed up more and it looks better (and probably functioning better) than it did years ago –
ten, 20, 30, 50 years ago.
BM:
And what would you attribute that to?
JK:
Just less timber harvesting, more controlled wood scrounging, and especially grazing: better
grazing management. And really the market system has really cut down on the motivation to
graze sheep up there, you just couldn’t make money. Plus the labor costs and scarcity of
labor for the shepherds, took care of a lot of battles with the sheep, in a very quiet way that
is much more acceptable than political battles in our culture (for better or worse).
Listen, why don’t you shut this down a bit.
[Stop and start recording.]
Well and the context – so much of my responses to your questions on policy and
involvement in the Forest Service is ironic, but I’ve had probably the least impact on Region
4 (this region) that I’ve spent almost 40 years in, than the rest of the agency. I’ve spent
much more time and have been much more accepted and welcomed into the Region 6
[Pacific Northwest Region] culture; I think they’re more liberal and they’re more mobile.
Region 4 is pretty homestead, you know. Folks usually stay within the region and don’t
leave. I don’t know. You only have so many places to punch your dance card. My phone
would be ringing and I’d be saying, “Yes” to go to Milwaukee and to go to Portland and go
to Juneau, and be driving in the snow past Ogden – coming or going – to catch a plane. I’d
be thinking, “What are you doing? Are you nuts Kennedy?” As a result, that filled a lot of
my needs to do that. And on the weekends often we would go some place, especially after
the kids grew up. I didn’t spend that much time involved in Logan Canyon.
And with some people, like the high Uintas we used to hike in when the kids were young, to
manage my guilt I would just support the high Uintas preservation group with Carter and
some of those folks – to be a spokesperson for me.
BM:
So that was one of the groups you were involved with?
JK:
Well, yeah initially, when he left the Wilderness Society and started that group.
BM:
And who is this person?
JK:
Dick Carter. [See Folk Collection 37: Box 3 & 4]
BM:
Dick Carter, okay.
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�JK:
Yeah. And he was one of my early students so I had a lot of respect for him. He was always
an activist, it was in his blood. Some students you just see in the audience and you know
that they’re going to be involved up to their elbows in that stuff.
I’ve been involved in surveys and I was involved in public meetings and things on their
planning, at the request of the district rangers (who I tended to know, but I haven’t known
the last two or three). So that’s kind of sad in a way, in my own backyard I’m the least
involved and probably the least known.
BM:
But it’s interesting in the perspective of the fact that it’s not that they’re behind the times
here, it’s that the culture is different and they are – how would you say it? They look at it
through a different lens?
JK:
They’re more entrenched, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. But I mean, really they
haven’t had the pressures that Oregon and Washington had in so many ways. And the values
were less environmentally oriented, so the populace hasn’t had a ground swell as they had in
those areas. Now that’s changing, happily. Of course Oregon has so many more people and
so much more money, and they needed so many more biologists because they had so much
mitigation work to do with all the activity they were doing up in the hills, for better or worse
(and often for worse). I spent an awful lot of time in Region 6, was well known in Region 6.
And loved going there because it was a different environment, and a different place; and you
go to a different city, like Portland. And sometimes Kathy would go with me. I spent a lot of
time there.
BM:
So what was it like to come back here then and watch what was going on here, knowing
what you saw in other places, as well as the kind of work that you were doing?
JK:
Well, I didn’t have the time and energy to mope about it too much. I tend to have faith that
things change, and I’m patient. [Laughing] I’ve learned patience. And yet I knew some
people and I respected them, and they respected me, but they wouldn’t ask me to be
involved as much because I usually would stir up action and excitement. That’s bothersome
to some people. Again, I don’t want to sound arrogant about them. Just by fate there were a
couple of regional foresters that we had a great personal and professional relationship with.
None of them have ever been in this region. Regional foresters trust you as an outsider;
they’re always calling you to do things. And it’s the same way with the chiefs, you know.
All the really sensitive national studies where we looked at the soul of the Forest Service, I
was in charge of. And they never edited me. I mean they just gave me a scalpel and rib
separators and said, “Here, we’ll support you. We want you to sample 15-20% of our people
and you just crank open their rib cage man, and you poke around in their heart.” They
trusted me to do that, and they never were betrayed.
BM:
And you did that through interview and surveys?
JK:
Yeah. I was the one that challenged them to look at their values and reward system. The
biggest heartburn and conflict at all state, especially the entry-levels of career, is when
people’s values are not consistent with the values that Forest Service rewards. And it’s the
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�same with the university. I’m not saying it’s not consistent with the values they mouth, the
values and their vision statement. What they say at the university or the Forest Service is
rewarded, is often much more consistent with what the values young people entering into
the profession hold dear and want to be rewarded. The real hypocrisy and the corrosive
effect on the agency culture, spirit and respect is when the agency says they reward values
that professionals endorse, and then they don’t. They reward other things. And the
university is the same hypocrisy, you see.
BM:
Oh, and I bet it’s true in other industries.
JK:
Oh yeah, but I think that’s true with most organizations. And it’s true with many families
too. “Oh we really care about our children. I really care about my spouse.” But put a
pedometer on their ankles or on their brain and their heart and see where their heart and
mind and ass spends most of their time. You’ll see that what you see and what you do is
often very, very different and hypocritical and dysfunctional in the long term; especially
when you don’t recognize or admit it.
And so the last study I did for the last kind of Vatican gathering of the council of the Forest
Service is – here I’ll show you. I just have to go over here and pull one off. I may even have
an extra.
Part of my not spending that much time in Logan Canyon, [was] of course [because], for the
last 15 years we’ve had a ranch in southern Utah, and every time I want to get in touch with
land I run there. I’m not the best person for the last 20-30 years about having an intimacy
with Logan Canyon. Most of the joy and thrill and contact I have with that National Forest
is just basking in its beauty visually and spiritually in the morning and the evening. And
waking up to it or looking out my window or facing a class and walking over to BNR314
and looking at the sun coming up over the mountain after the students thunder out, or the
sun setting on it and the snow turning pink. Thinking how blessed I am to live in this valley.
So it’s the ambiance, the indirect relationship I have with that. And I’ve hiked up on Mount
Logan – I just look up at it and remember that I’ve been there and know what it looks like
up there – and can still feel a joy walking over to my 3:30 class Wednesday, my Econ class
that’s two hours over in the Business Building. When I go have coffee I always sit at the bar
and face out the window. Even if I’m reading the paper, I’m looking over the top of the
paper all the time at that mountain. So you know I do cherish it. That’s one of the reasons
I’m here and came here. I haven’t had a hands-on relationship with it for quite a while.
BM:
But there’s also that being able to enjoy it from a distance, and those memories that are a
part of it. As well as you know, you think of how does that help regenerate you and just recharge you for the kinds of things that you need to go and do.
JK:
Oh, it’s a very spiritual relationship. Just as some people walk past a stain-glass window or
something, it has all those qualities.
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�BM:
You wonder if, you know, when you talk about just that simple act of being able to enjoy
the canyon from here, and you wonder how many people actually do that. Especially the
students – when you think of this incredible setting we’re in and it hits you in the face all the
time.
JK:
Yeah, yeah.
BM:
And in the changing light of day, you know, highlights the different parts of that
mountainside to the east. You know, how many people really think about that?
JK:
Yeah. Oh in the last two weeks it’s been some of the greenest I’ve ever seen it since 1970. It
looks like Ireland; it’s gorgeous! Maybe 10% of the last 30 years the soil has been that
saturated with moisture; it is amazing. Plus with the cool spring, we’ve put off the growth
spurt until the day length really is long. And man, those plants are like race horses: been
delayed in the starting gate for 15 minutes – they can’t wait to get out. And you can just see
them grow; you can just hear it almost.
BM:
The green up is amazing; it just really catches your eye. Ah! Let’s stop for a second.
[Stop and start recording.]
Okay, we’re back.
JK:
Now all the research that I did was never funded by the research money – not a dime. It was
always out of operating. It was line officers that had problems, had questions; had issues.
And they really wanted me to come in. That’s why I could never have many graduate
students – they wanted me to come in and be a consultant. And they wanted the answers
next week. I mean I’d say, “Over the summer I can find a good grad student, and we’ll study
it for two years, we’ll have a publication.” “No way.” That was not their time dimension.
They were in a hurry and they had real issues. Now it was sad that I’d hire people that were
on campus for six months, or six weeks, to do something and that was grand. But I never
developed a cadre of PhD students and things like that because I could never get long-term
funding. And these folks kept me so busy doing things I thought were important and were
immensely rewarding.
The nice thing about that though is you never lamented them not using your results. In fact
they over-used them sometimes. They would, you know. I would say, “Wait a minute! This
is only two regions, this isn’t a national study.” “No, no, no; let’s put it in place, we’ll start a
program!” You know, and you’re around these people that are actionary people – they were
so much different than researchers. And their time dimensions, their sense of urgency and
often their personal bonding – I mean they didn’t want to lose another woman wildlife
biologist. It was too hard to recruit them, and the last one that left broke their heart because
she had a lot of potential. And they saw it as a real failure and an accident that they would
like to avoid. So that was pretty heady and rewarding.
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�I did respect the Forest Service social scientists. Hendee, Stankey
and Lucas were some of
the best social scientists on the planet in the area of natural resources.
BM:
Could you – you’ve got the first name?
JK:
Hendee, Stankey and Lucas – they were the last names. You’d all know them? [John
Hendee, George Stankey & Robert Lucas. ]
BM:
George Stankey?
JK:
Yeah. They all came up with the first studies of wilderness areas and boundary waters canoe
areas; and the landscape architects in the Forest Service coming up with all the visual
management stuff. People in Europe, that’s what they wanted to get from us. I mean they
thought they knew all they needed to know about silviculture (and chances are they did), or
game management in Germany or New Zealand. In the early 1900s if there were floppy
disks, Germany and France could’ve given us floppy disks on how to manage our forests,
how to create a National Forest Service, and how to educate our forestry students. We
essentially just took that and put it right into our (metaphorically) computers in 1900, and
just followed them like a blueprint. But what we gave back to that area of the world and the
rest of the world when we started being innovative was NEPA, really.
From the ‘60s and ‘70s on, we were ahead of all the rest of the natural resource agencies in
the western world and planet. Because the previous ones – this whole machine model of
conservation: sustaining the flow of (primarily) commodities – was designed for an
industrial state with a large part of the population still being rural. They were able to have
that kind of blood and blister relationship with producing commodities. But in a restrained
way (and that’s what sustained was – it was a bridle on us race horses or plow horses out
there) to manage the land in a way that wouldn’t destroy the long-term productivity. That’s
the way the laws and the philosophy always was; but as we became an urban, post-industrial
society (and I’ve written extensively on that) there was a different relationship with the land.
It was urban and it was much more romantic and idealistic; much less blood and blister. And
I have nothing against romanticism – I’m a romantic and I’m going to die one. I’m even
romantic about death.
The Danish Forest Service, they were still stuck in a rural, industrial model of society’s
relationship with their natural resources. And society just was not there. And we thought it
was society’s problem. Look at all the effort Weyerhaeuser invested to try to get the public
to love clear cuts, you know. No way. And maybe we can get people to love root canals. I
mean they just don’t like it, you know. And it looks bloody ugly; and don’t tell me it’s going
to look good in 50 years! I’m already 50 and I’m not going to be here! And that’s not
renewable as far as I’m concerned, buster.
And in many ways it’s always been the case that the public are libertarians and foresters and
wildlife/fisheries biologists, we’ve always been communists. We look at the stand, and the
population, and the long-term. And that’s a very impersonal, abstract relationship where
people don’t cut that tree or those trees along that stream in a very libertarian way. And we
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�respond like communists, “You’ve got to think in the long term, lady. Don’t get emotional.
You know this has a purpose; we’re going to plant it back. It’s all going to be back and
you’ve got to focus on the masses, not the individual. And don’t be bleeding heart about it;
you’ve got to be a bit abstract.”
That’s the argument I used to have with my classmates at Penn State in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
And so there’s a built in conflict between the public and natural resource managers. We are,
by our nature and by what society really expects of us, dealing with the long-term
productivity and sustainability of systems to look at it in a larger, more abstract way. Some
people think it’s impersonal, where we love the system. You know, Stalin would probably
say he loved the masses of Russians, as he was killing about 5% of the population every
decade. It just didn’t fit into his image. It had to be done to cull the stand, to get rid of the
weed trees. You know, to manage it for long-term, abstract goals – which sustained yield is,
or sustainability is a pretty abstraction too. And it’s a much more organic model.
[Stop recording.]
[Tape 4 of 4: A]
Susan needs to pick up from here and finish the transcript with the last tape I have sent over.
Thanks, Barbara
Randy Williams: I do not have the fourth tape. Sent email to Barb on 1/7/2011 and again on
7/12/2011 about it.
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�
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Jim Kennedy interview, 4-5 May 2009, and transcription
Description
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Kennedy discusses his childhood experiences in nature and feelings toward nature. He talks about his professional career and relationships (with the Forest Service and as a professor at Utah State University), and how those have helped him form his current perspective and worldview. The transcript for tape 4 is not included as of 10/10/12
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Kennedy, James Joseph, 1940-
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Middleton, Barbara
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Kennedy, James Joseph, 1940---Interviews
Kennedy, James Joseph, 1940---Childhood and youth
Kennedy, James Joseph, 1940---Family
Kennedy, James Joseph, 1940---Career in Forestry Education
Trapping--Pennsylvania--Montgomery--Anecdotes
Farm life--Pennsylvania--Montgomery
Dairy farming--Pennsylvania--Anecdotes
Delta Upsilon Fraternity
Utah State University. College of Natural Resources--Faculty--Interviews
Forestry teachers--Biography
College teaching--Utah--Logan--Anecdotes
Mentoring in education
Recreation--Utah--Logan Canyon
Utah State University. Forestry Field Station Camp--Anecdotes
Box, Thadis W.
Ecology--Study and teaching
United States. Forest Service
United States. Forest Service--Officials and employees--Training of
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Kennedy, James Joseph, 1940---Religion
Natural resources--Law and legislation--Utah
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Cache Valley (Utah)
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Bear Lake (Utah and Idaho)
Bear Lake County (Idaho)
Rich County (Utah)
Philadelphia (Pensylvania)
Pennsylvania
Mink Creek (Idaho)
Emigration Canyon (Idaho)
Mount Logan (Utah)
Green Canyon (North Logan, Utah)
Idaho
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 3 Fd. 6
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Logan Canyon Reflections
-
http://highway89.org/files/original/0057aec5e49ff98be54dc955f758ee12.mp3
475bd1becfcac6cbe06837883a6c651a
http://highway89.org/files/original/2ff5831c9365bee55920e58d6c6717b0.pdf
03f6ac5e6ec24f8075f3f1f3008b96e4
PDF Text
Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
John K. Hansen
Place of Interview: Garden City, UT
Date of Interview: 12 March 2009
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Barbara Middleton
Barbara Middleton
Recording Equipment:
Radio Shack Tape Recorder, CTR-122
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Susan Gross
Randy Williams, 6 July 2011; Becky Skeen, Fall 2012
Brief Description of Contents: Mr. Hansen talks about growing up in Garden City, Utah on his
families’ cow and sheep operation, including yearly cycle of ranching: haying, feeding cattle and
sheep, moving animals, protecting lambs from predators; his earliest memories of Logan
Canyon; three years in the South Pacific during World War II; 18 years in highway construction
with WW Clyde and Company in Springville, Utah; returning to Garden City to take over family
sheep ranch.
Reference:
BM = Barbara Middleton (Interviewer; Interpretive Specialist, Environment &
Society Dept., USU College of Natural Resources)
JH = John Hansen (Interviewee)
NH = Noreen Hansen (Interviewee’s wife)
BH = Bonnie Hansen (Interviewee’s daughter)
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with
brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 3: A]
BM:
I’m going to watch the tape every now and then.
This is Barbara Middleton and we are here in Garden City. And this is tape 1, side A.
And we are here in the home of John --
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�JH:
BM:
John K. Hansen.
John K. Hansen. And we are just getting started on the first interview with John. So I am
going to have him start off with talking about when and where he was born and a little bit
of his background. John.
JH:
Okay. I was born right here in Garden City, about a mile west of Garden City in my
grandfather’s home. The old home still stands there. That was August the 16th, 1924. As I
say, that home still stands there. As you go up the highway toward Logan from the last of
the service stations, as you begin to climb the hill it’s on your left down off the grade.
You can still see that white home down there, it’s still there.
BM:
So this is Highway 89?
JH:
Yeah, uh-huh.
BM:
Up the canyon, okay.
JH:
Yeah. And I still have a cousin and his wife living there. My grandparents moved out and
moved over to Logan at the outbreak of World War II. And they owned a sheep ranch
there. They had three sons that worked on that ranch and they all had different things to
do. After I grew up enough to be of much help to them I used to help with the haying and
with one thing or another. Most of my life was spent right here where we’re sitting except
for I spent nearly three years in the South Pacific during World War II. That was from
one end of the Pacific to the other, with a few stops in between. Then I spent 18 years in
highway construction with WW Clyde and Company over down in Springville, Utah.
Then I came back here when my brother had passed away; my dad had been gone for
several years and had this ranch here. When my brother passed away he was running the
ranch for mother. So I had to come back and I had to quit construction and come back
here to help her out. And I’ve been here ever since. I don’t know whether it was a good
thing or a bad thing!
[Laughing]
JH:
Today, with the way things are why there just isn’t much in farming and ranching. There
isn’t anything here in Garden City anymore. There is so much development; there isn’t
what you could call a stable farm or ranch here that would be in full production, like there
used to be.
BM:
So let’s talk a little bit about that, in terms of you started out with sheep ranching and
haying and of course have seen a lot of change. Would you go back and talk a little bit
about the early years of that sheep ranching and what the haying was like?
JH:
Yeah.
BM:
And how old were you at that time?
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�JH:
Well, when I got old enough to be much help in the hay fields – the hay at that time was
all put by a horse plow, with horse drawn mow machines and hay rakes and everything
else. They just started using overshot stackers. Well, that was quite a job to work on the
pull-up with a team of horses.
BM:
That’s where the horses --?
JH:
Yeah, the horses pulled it up on what they call an “overshot stacker” and I had the job of
driving the team to put the hay on the stack.
BM:
So it was a team of two horses that pulled out?
JH:
Yeah, um-hmm. A regular team.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
And then I had the job also of raking up the scatters which was a job for me because you
didn’t trip the hay rig with your foot like you did later on, you did that with a lever. And
sometimes in heavy hay that lever would just about yank you right off of the hay rig.
[Laughing]
JH:
And I wasn’t very big anyhow, so [laughing]. But that was my job to start out with.
BM:
You know, I have seen that. And that’s a pretty quick operation.
JH:
It is.
BM:
You had to be fast.
JH:
You have to know what you’re doing and if you’re on that pull-up on the stacker that
reaches the top, you can tip the stacker right over on top of that hay stacker over on top of
them stacking hay, if you’re not careful. But they usually had it chained down with stakes
driven in the ground to keep that from happening. But you had to hit that hard enough, let
your team to hit that hard enough up at the very top so that hay would shoot off, and then
you would back your team up just a little bit and let that momentum carry the stacker
head back.
BM:
And how high did you build these hay stacks?
JH:
They were up about, some of them 18-20 feet.
BM:
So this hay was stored out in these big piles, and just left open to the rain and such?
JH:
No, no. We stacked all of our hay right here – we had a big field out here in the south of
town where we had our wild meadow hay. And all the hay that was in here we stacked
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�right here behind the barn. Generally we would have about four stacks of hay – real good,
big stacks of hay when we’re done. And then it would be fenced in. Out in the meadow
we did the same thing. We had stockyards built out there, because if you didn’t you
always fed your livestock out where the hay was, so you had to fence those yards in or
you wouldn’t have any hay left!
BM:
[Laughing] So you had these stacks at two different places?
JH:
Oh yeah.
BM:
Out here, when are you going out and feeding your animals? Is it once a day?
JH:
Ordinarily we always fed our cattle and sheep twice a day, both of them.
BM:
And how do you get out there?
JH:
In the wintertime with a hay rack and a team and sleighs, and you went out and opened
the gate and drove in beside your haystack and pitched a load on and hauled it out in the
field and strung it off to the animals. Whatever you were feeding: sheep or cattle; you
never fed the two of them together.
BM:
Hmm. And why not? Why won’t you feed them both together?
JH:
Because the cattle chase the sheep off.
BM:
Oh, okay.
JH:
They would eat – they were just too rough on the sheep. And by the time in the
wintertime, why your ewes would be getting heavy with lamb, and it was just too
dangerous. So you fed them separate.
BM:
Um-hmm. So you have them in pastures, fenced in different pastures –
JH:
Um-hmm, yeah.
BM:
And you have to get the sleighs into both of these pastures –
JH:
Yeah, um-hmm.
BM:
To come and feed them. Were the animals waiting for you?
JH:
You bet, standing there at the gate [laughing]. And one thing that I haven’t saw in this
valley for years – all while I was growing up as you remember – well our winters, we had
snow over here that you couldn’t see the fences.
BM:
Oh, wow!
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�JH:
You couldn’t see the fences. A lot of times we would just drive our teams and sleighs
right over the fences and go right out to the stockyard. And I don’t know why, but the
stock just stayed there – you would have thought they would have followed the sleigh
roads back.
BM:
Right.
JH:
But they didn’t. They stayed pretty – that’s why we fed them twice a day (that’s one
reason why). The other reason why, my dad always had a lot of consideration for his
animals and it fell off on me too. You know, in bitter cold weather an animal needs to
have some feed for it in the mornings – just like you want to have suppertime –
BM:
Um-hmm.
JH:
Okay, so did they. And they did better and it didn’t take as much hay either. You would
think so, but it didn’t. It didn’t take all that much hay extra. In the springtime then, your
animals are ready to go out on the range when it comes time to go and if feed was a little
short (which it generally was), why then they could get by a whole lot better until the
feed began to come up better so they could get a mouthful, you know?
BM:
Um-hmm.
JH:
We always came in with a top weight on our lambs and our calves. And your animals do
so much better and they didn’t resent you and you could work them a whole lot better,
which just made the work so much easier for the persons that are working them. In the
past I have worked for other cattlemen where they fed their cows whether they need it or
not. Come calving time you had a mighty tough time with the calving process. The poor
old cows had an awful time. And you would pull more calves than you could shake a
stick at.
BM:
Hmm.
JH:
And the same way with the sheep. In other words, a weak animal is nothing to have. So
we always got by that way and did just fine. And that’s what we did when I took this
place over, come back to it. We didn’t have the sheep – my dad sold the sheep when the
War came on.
BM:
Um-hmm. Now before you go into that – you just went through almost a whole year of
your cattle-sheep cycle. Let’s break that down a little bit, because there are some
interesting things there. To me, as far as having them contained and then you’re getting
them out onto what I assume was the Cache National Forest?
JH:
Well, we could always go on the forest on the first day of July. And then on the tenth day
of September, your time was up and you came off the forest. And then you had to have a
spring and fall range to go with that.
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�BM:
Now, did the cattle go one place and the sheep go another?
JH:
Yeah. Well, pretty much so, pretty much so. In the earlier years, back in the Depression
years when things were really tough, why they had the sheep and the cattle pretty much
together. They just put them out – with the sheep, they were herded. If you didn’t, you
would wreck that grazing land (wherever it was – on the forest or your own), you would
wreck that grazing land right quick.
BM:
Um-hmm. And is that because of them eating down close to the ground?
JH:
Yeah, um-hmm, yeah.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
So that’s one thing I would like to stress if it’s your dealing you say with people who hear
about these things and without a doubt you too yourself have heard about the old sheep
and cattle wars where the cattlemen wanted to run all of the sheep out of the country, and
vice versa. And they couldn’t get along. Well my dad never did put his herd out in the
morning in the same place they grazed yesterday.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
And he would go back over that and he would evaluate what those sheep took yesterday
because different feed, and the sheep will get on a barren hillside with nothing but white
gravel on that thing, and feed for hours at a time! And you’d wonder, “What in the world
are they eating rocks for?” So you ride your horse over there and sit there and watch for
an hour what they’re doing. And then you’re going to get off the horse and walk over
there and move that sheep out of the road – our sheep are just about as gentle as they
could be – and here is a rock about that big around that was sticking up and all around it
was gray moss. That’s what they were eating! A cow would never eat that, so the sheep
man he always got blamed for dropping out the forest. And some of them did, don’t get
me wrong. Because there were some men who overgrazed in other words, and that’s one
thing I never saw my dad do or my grandfather.
BM:
Um-hmm. So your grandfather and your dad both started that business and you were the
third then, in your family that continued that? Third generation?
JH:
Yeah, um-hmm. I didn’t do sheep. Like I say, when World War II came along, Dad sold
the sheep because he figured my older brother would be going into the service right
quick. I was a junior in high school, at that particular time, and he didn’t figure that he
could get along with me, with the sheep. And him trying to be down here and get the
irrigating done and everything else that goes with a ranch, you know.
BM:
So then he became just a cattleman?
JH:
So he took the money and went and bought cows instead.
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�BM:
Um-hmm.
JH:
And he bought himself one heck of a job! [Laughing] Because the cattle that he bought
were wild, dirty stinkers!
BM:
Really?
JH:
Yes, they were! I’ll tell you what!
BM:
Where did you go to buy cattle at this time? I mean are you talking about buying cattle in
the valley?
JH:
Yeah.
BM:
So there are other people that are selling off their herd?
JH:
Yeah, well the cattle he bought was right down there in the same town –
BM:
Ovid. Okay, Ovid, Idaho.
JH:
And the man he bought those cows from – his last name was Olsen. They were the
wildest bunch of miserable animals you’ve ever seen!
BM:
So how did you get them here? How did you bring them from Ovid?
JH:
They trucked them up here.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
Yeah, they trucked them.
NH:
And the kids down there were the same!
[Laughing]
BM:
So when you got the cattle on the land here, how were they wild?
JH:
Oh, you just have to be around a sheep outfit, but never had any cattle. You’ve got sheep
curls about that high, and they was nothing to a cow! They would just go through her like
a Sherman tank!
[Laughing]
JH:
Down here on this lake shore below us, clear along here for oh, half a mile – just a solid
line of sheep sheds where they lambed all the sheeps. Now my dad’s brother had a herd,
and they ran them together – so that’s where they would lamb them out down here in the
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�early spring. They would start lambing right around the 15th of April and that’s where
they would do it.
BM:
Was there a certain weather condition that they needed?
JH:
The warmer, the better; the warmer the better. And, the drier the better.
BM:
Is it warm here at that time of year.
JH:
It was pretty warm.
NH:
It was!
[Laughing]
BM:
What’s the temperature April 15th? What do you remember?
JH:
Back then? It was kicking right around 40 degrees.
BM:
And snow? Did you have snow?
JH:
Yeah, there would still be a little snow, not much snow. There would still be a lot of ice
on the lake.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
That was one of my jobs when we had the sheep. I’d come home from school and hook
up a team of horses and go around – this is all slough down here clear over to my uncle’s
place. I had to go around to his gate and back around with my team and hook them on to
a sled. We had four open top, 50 gallon barrels on there and there is a good spring right
below the sheds. I’d go down there with a bucket – 5 gallon bucket – and fill those
barrels full. And I’d come up and go through those sheep sheds and water the sheep at
night.
BM:
Oh! So they were in and they were waiting for you to shear them?
JH:
Well, they generally didn’t shear those sheep until, oh around the 10th of June – it was
just too cold.
BM:
Oh, okay.
JH:
My dad and his brothers – spring and fall range was over on this side – you’ve seen
where that little segment of “R” on top of the hill?
BM:
Um-hmm.
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�JH:
Well, their spring and fall ranges were immediately below that.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
There were about four sections of land in there that the two of them had together and they
ran on, that they homesteaded. So that’s where they take them over after they got through
lambing out, why they would put the two herds together and then they would trail them
over. It would take them about three days to get them over there with all them young
lambs in the bunch.
BM:
And what are they trailing them through? What’s the landscape like? Is it dry at that
time?
JH:
Yeah. It’s pretty dry. You would be getting spring rain storms, you know, off and on
quite a bit. Most generally it was pretty nice weather.
BM:
Okay. And then, is that where you sheared them then?
JH:
Yeah, we sheared them over there.
BM:
Okay. So if your job was shearing, were you actually –
JH:
My job was right here with my mother. We had five or six milk cows.
BM:
Ahh.
JH:
And I had to go them night and morning and help her milk them milk cows.
NH:
[??]
[Laughing]
BM:
What time did you get up for that job?
JH:
Oh, we’d get up right around five o’clock on average. From the time I’d get those milk
cows milked and get them took out to pasture, why it was getting along towards eight
o’clock. And then when I come home at night, I had to go get them again and help her
milk them again!
[Laughing]
BM:
That’s a busy job. That’s another regular kind of thing you have to do every day.
JH:
Yeah. It’s an every day process – there’s just no getting away from it.
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�BM:
So then when it was shearing time, in between the milking of the cows were you down
there helping them with the sheep shearing?
JH:
Nope, no. That was all done across the lake over there on the east mountains. I just had to
stay here and help her and help her plant the gardens and stuff like that.
BM:
Sure because the weather was planting time.
NH:
Did you help lamb the lambs, when they were down -- ?
JH:
Yeah, um-hmm.
BM:
So tell us about that – so that’s right across the street here.
JH:
Yeah.
BM:
Okay, tell us about the lambing.
JH:
Oh, that was a terrible job! [Laughing] That was a clock around job. You always had a
night shift to go on. They would hire a couple of guys and most generally, why they were
my dad and my uncle’s nephews that just lived around the corner there and they was both
married. They’d come over and one of them would come to work just as it was beginning
to get dark at night. And they would always pull a sheep camp down there so they’d have
a place to stay in all the weather. And then the other one would come over and relieve
him right shortly after midnight. And he would go until like six o’clock in the morning –
most generally five or four o’clock my dad was down there. And they’d hire those guys
to help them out that way.
And there was a job of having to feed those sheep down there off the hay rack. Those big
corrals we had down there – we had to board up the side of the wagons clear to the
ground so the ewes and the lambs couldn’t get under and get run over. And I fell under
that job more times than not! [Laughing] That was first thing in the morning, but when I
come home from school – lo and behold them milk cows were still staring me in the face!
BM:
So when are lambs typically born? Are they often night, or?
JH:
Anytime, any day. You could always tell when the pressure dropped you would get a
bunch of lambs. If the pressure dropped, why you’d have lambs all over. That was
another little job I had to do. They had a sheep boat it was just on a pair of skids (like that
water skid I was telling you about), only they had a little box on that thing. I would go
out through the corrals and generally either dad or my cousin or my uncle would go along
with me and we would gather up the lambs and ewes and put them in that thing. We had a
lot of space where we could put the ewes and the lambs in a pen to theirselves. And then
you had to constantly shift them and make room for the next go around. It was quite a
deal. And then if you weren’t watching real close, you could get those lambs mixed up
and then boy, there was all heck to pay!
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�[Laughing]
BM:
A lamb can lose it’s mom?
JH:
Oh yeah.
BM:
Huh. How do they know their mother?
JH:
They have their own smell, their own scent. Each one has their own scent. And that’s
how the mothers can tell their own lambs apart.
BM:
So when the mother gets sheared two months after the lamb was born, the lamb still
knows mom because she still smells the same even though she might look a lot different.
JH:
Um-hmm, yep. Oh yeah! That don’t bother them lambs. They know where that bottle of
milk’s at! [Laughing]
BM:
Don’t lambs have twins?
JH:
Yes.
BM:
And triplets sometimes?
JH:
Twins and triplets and sometimes four lambs – I’ve seen them have four lambs. But I
hated to see triplets, I just hated to see triplets. Because mama most generally didn’t have
the milk for them.
BM:
Oh!
JH:
So you would have to go through the herd and find a mama that only had one lamb. And
then the trick was to get mama to take that lamb. And until you could get her milk going
through that lamb, she wouldn’t have nothing to do with them.
BM:
So how do you do that?
JH:
You just tip the ewe up on her hind end and you suckle that lamb until he filled up and
then you put them back in the pen together. And if she got mean with him, why you’d
have to put him in a little side pen next to her. And then you always let that little lamb get
just a little on the hungry side – there was tricks just like there is in all trades [laughing] –
you just had to be able to figure out, you know, what was going on and understand your
animals. So you would let him get good and hungry and then you would take her lamb
(because she had one lamb), you would take her lamb and put him over in that pen with
the bum lamb. Then when you come back to feed those lambs, then odd lamb (to her),
he’s hungry enough to hang up the bottle and so is her lamb hungry enough. So then you
had to get a hold of that ewe and make her behave herself, and put a lamb on each side.
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�And every time she tried to reach around her to bump that spare lamb, why you just
popped her on the nose and let her behave herself.
BM:
So how many like, triplets did you have in the season? That’s a lot of work!
JH:
That is a lot of work! Thank heaven there wasn’t too many of them! [Laughing]
[End Tape 1: A; Begin Tape 1: B]
BM:
Tape 1, side 2. And we’re continuing with the sheep and the bum lamb and getting it to
take to a different mother.
JH:
Um-hmm, yeah. Okay, so you made her behave herself and made her keep standing up so
both lambs (on each side) could suck. A mother will always turn around and stick her
nose right back under that lamb’s tail. That’s how she identifies that lamb, is by her milk
going through that lamb. So that’s why then once you can get her to behave herself and
get enough of her milk going through the bum lamb. And then if she don’t want to stick
her nose around there and recognize him, you bend it around her and make her do it. You
could save little lambs that way.
BM:
How do you bend a sheep around? I mean aren’t these sheep pretty big?
JH:
Yeah. The average of my dad’s sheep – they were big old Columbia ewes – and they
weighed around 150 pounds. And I’ll tell you what, you’ve got a job to do.
BM:
And how old were you at the time?
JH:
Oh, I guess I was about 14 when I would help them down there. Then I would go through
their corrals with them and help them that way when I could. In later years here I had a
little herd of my own here on the place. I would lamb them right here and sheared them
out right here. So I knew all about how to handle them.
BM:
Now one other thing, before you go on to that: you were mentioning that sometimes the
mother didn’t take to the – what did you call it? Bum lamb.
JH:
Yeah.
BM:
So there were times when you had to supplement and feed yourself.
JH:
Yeah.
BM:
Could you tell us a little bit about that?
JH:
Well, if you was worth a hoot, you could make her take that lamb.
BM:
So it was pretty successful?
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�JH:
Yeah, it worked fine, it worked real good. We made that ewe stay in that pen until she
took that lamb, until she let that lamb suck. And then we would put her out in the bigger
pen with a few more ewes and their lambs and watch her, until you knew that she had the
lamb, she recognized the lamb and she would feed the lamb. And she would keep track of
it. But it was all the other lambs that came along like that – whether it was triplets and
you didn’t have any place to put two of them – why you bottle fed them. We’d keep them
around, we’d bottle feed those little beggars all summer.
BM:
Is this cow milk your?
JH:
Just cow milk, yep. Just cow milk. [Laughing]
NH:
It wasn’t that much of a job! [Laughing]
JH:
The only problem I had, you would have a bum lamb and a bottle – those little beggars,
they liked to get a hold of that nipple on the end and they would just start chewing on that
and sucking on that, pretty soon they would back up and pop the nipple off. The milk
would go out! Then they’d run around in middle of the corral and spit the nipple out and
you would have to go find it and wash it off! It was a job, you know. It could try your
patience sometimes, but we always had some real good bum lambs to sell when the sheep
would come off the forest. Ordinarily my dad’s lambs weighed around, oh, around 90-95
pounds. Which is a real good lamb.
BM:
And how old would that lamb be?
JH:
That would be an April born lamb.
BM:
Okay. So when were the sheep and the lambs turned out on to the National Forest? When
did you turn them out for grazing?
JH:
That’s on the first day of July of the year.
BM:
Okay, so that’s July. So they are on the ground, they’re being born in April, so April,
May, June – they’re only like three months old.
JH:
Yep.
BM:
So how big is this lamb at this time? Is this like a loaf of bread? Is it -- ?
JH:
The newborn lamb?
BM:
Um-hmm.
JH:
Some of those little fellars would weigh, oh, I guess about six or eight pounds. I hated to
see that – I liked to see a smaller lamb more because it will get up and it will go. If
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�they’re any heavier than that in the cold weather, the little beggars will lay right there and
freeze to death if you ain’t right there.
BM:
Hmm.
JH:
And then they get lazy and they don’t want to follow mama. If you’re moving them, like
on a range, why they won’t get up and follow mama, when she leaves them – goes and
begins to feed why they lay right there and then that ewe will have to go clear back there
and get that confounded lamb. A lot of time she can’t find it because the little cuss won’t
answer her. If the herder don’t know where that’s happened – if you ain’t watching your
herd in other words – why, that can happen you lose a lot of lambs. If it doesn’t happen
that way then the coyote gets them or the cat.
BM:
So that would have been one of the predators that –
JH:
Yeah, um-hmm.
BM:
Mountain lions or coyotes.
JH:
Or coyotes, yup.
BM:
Were there pretty healthy populations of those?
JH:
Oh, there was a lot of coyotes! There was a lot of coyotes. A lot of times we’d have to get
up in the night and go run them off. Over on the east side of the lake when they first got
up there in the spring – take the old lanterns and hang lanterns all around the bedding
ground. You never let them sheep just sleep anywhere, you put them on the bed ground
so you could watch them.
BM:
Huh! And you put lanterns around the edge?
JH:
Um-hmm. Put lanterns all around your bed ground and that would help keep the coyotes
out of them. But a lot of times you had to go out there and run the dang things off.
BM:
So you’re on horseback running –
JH:
No. No, you’re on foot at night.
BM:
Oh.
JH:
You just go out there and when it’s dark you can’t see nothing anyhow – you just go out
there and run them off the best you can.
BM:
Um-hmm. Did you yell?
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�JH:
Yeah. You just had to holler and be careful how you done it because if you got to yelling,
why the next thing you know your whole herd got off the bed ground and gone out in the
sagebrush somewhere!
BM:
Holy smokes! So how many of you are doing this? How many of you are watching the
bedding grounds as well as running off – how many people are managing? One.
JH:
Um-hmm. Just the herder.
BM:
And that’s you?
JH:
Well, sometimes it was. After we got out of school in the middle of June, why there was
no school so I would go out and let my dad come home and do some things that he
needed to do. Over there, you know, there are some nasty looking rattlesnakes, and out in
the dark with them sheep. You could get pretty snaky! [Laughing]
BH:
So Dad, was that the common way most sheep herders did? Was just one sheep herder?
JH:
Yeah. Well, not too much. Pert near all the sheep men around here -- and there was a lot
of them in Rich County. Over here right across from us and clear up into Idaho, there was
eight herds of sheep over there.
BM:
Clear up would be like –
JH:
Up there at Mud Lake – east of Mud Lake.
BM:
Gotcha.
JH:
There was eight herds of sheep over there, besides what was over here. Nine out of ten of
them had a Mexican herder. A big part of them had a Mexican herder.
BM:
Hmm. And why was that?
JH:
Didn’t have to pay them so much.
[Laughing]
BM:
Cheap labor.
JH:
Yep, cheaper labor.
NH:
And the [inaudible] didn’t make them herd sheep.
BM:
Oh, okay.
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�JH:
But you know, where the bulk of those old Mexican herders, they were the nicest people
you’d ever want to be around. For example, if we picked up some of their stray sheep,
we’d come out of our herd and then we’d take them over (with their brand on them, you
know, we knew which herd they went to) so quick as we got a chance we would take
them over there to that herd. And then you could sit there and visit with – if you could
understand that Mexican. Most of them, they could talk broken English pretty fair, you
know. He’d ask you if you’d want, “How about a cup of coffee before you go back?” or
something like that, and you could talk about things.
Most of the herds that was right here came from the Nebeker Ranch right over here. We
was right by them. So if they had any problem at all over there – and all those herders
rode mules – the orneriest bunch of contemptible animals you’ve ever seen in your life!
[Laughing]
NH:
Now he could have said something worse!
[Laughing]
BM:
Oh, tell me about these mules!
JH:
Yep, they were good. They were good mountain animals to ride if you could stay on
them! Yeah. You had to ride them with a breast strap on your saddle and a britchen on
the back end to keep the saddle from sliding over his ears.
BM:
Right!
JH:
And when you’re going up hill the breast strap kept the saddle from coming back and
sliding off the tail end!
But anyway, if they happen to get or something, why they would come over to our camp
and we didn’t have much of a problem to get down here, the Nebeker Ranch, and let
them know about it.
BM:
Now why mules? Did the Mexicans that worked the sheep – did they bring mules with
them, or is that something that was locally used?
JH:
Nope. Nope, that was just what was locally used on some sheep outfits.
BM:
And why not horses?
JH:
Well, mule don’t take as much feed and he’s got a lot of good stamina; and I guess
mostly that was probably the reason why most of those sheep men furnished mules
survived.
BH:
Dad, were horses more expensive than mules?
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�JH:
You know, they were to go buy a good horse.
NH:
Well a mule would eat what a horse wouldn’t eat too, wouldn’t they?
JH:
Yeah.
BM:
So they eat less and they eat a different kind of feed?
JH:
Well, they eat the same thing as far as that goes. I’ve seen them go strip the bark off
cedar trees and eat the bark off of cedar trees.
BM:
Ooh. Well it also sounds like you’re in some pretty rough country, if you need to both tie
your saddle off on the tail and with a breast collar – you’re going up and down some
rugged hills!
JH:
You do! You do over there! Back here on the forest it’s even steeper than that! We had to
use breast straps and troopers on all of our back horses because you couldn’t keep a pack
on there right. One thing about that job, if you didn’t know how to throw a square cinch
tie, you was in trouble! You could never keep a pack on a pack saddle. So when I was
with my dad, why I learned how to tie that knot. [Laughing] You use what they call
“swing cinches” to work on that knot. I’d crawl up on top of that load and roll the square
end so he could hook the other end of rope through it; and when you pulled it down to a
cinch, it would just pull a square knot just about that big. And that pack didn’t move.
BM:
Hmm. Could you still tie that knot today?
JH:
I don’t know whether I could or not! [Laughing]
NH:
I think he could.
JH:
I don’t know whether I could or not!
[Laughing]
BM:
So when you were tying this up – it sounds like you’re going out to stay for awhile with
supplies for a sheep camp?
JH:
Yeah. Well every time you moved camp – and you had to move, ordinarily we would
move camp up here about, oh nearly every other day. Like I say, the easier you took it on
your feed allotment up there, the better feed you had next year. And your water supplies,
your spring supplies – it is amazing at how much it helped those spring supplies!
BM:
What do you mean by that? Tell me more about how the grazing helps the spring.
JH:
Well, you know you’ve seen where the grass is burned in the summer months, burned
right to the ground – where it’s never had anything. It hasn’t had enough water all
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�summer long. Well that’s what it looks like if you over-graze it. Well there is nothing
there to hold the summer rains that comes; to revitalize that feed and keep your water
supply up. So over-grazing hurts that range more than anybody could ever think.
Anybody that does that is doing nothing but hurting their own self and their animals.
BM:
Um-hmm. And you probably saw some of that?
JH:
Oh, I’ve seen too much of it.
BM:
So what makes that change? Were you and your dad and your grandfather – was the
permit system already in place then in the forest?
JH:
Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, gosh I don’t think I was much more than, what – maybe five years
old – when my dad – well my grandfather came into this country with the first herd of
sheep that came into Bear Lake Valley.
BM:
When was that?
JH:
I can’t tell you the year – he was a very young man himself, and he herded sheep for a
big sheep company out west of Ogden. [Thinking out loud] What in the heck is that little
town out west of Ogden?
BM:
Were you around Lucerne? In that area?
JH:
No, this is right straight west of Ogden –
NH:
It’s not Roy –
JH:
No, no.
BM:
But you’re west of town and east of the lake then?
JH:
Oh yeah, yeah. I’m just telling you where he grew up. He lived in that town. No.
NH:
No, Milton’s over in Cache Valley.
JH:
No. Well anyway, that’s where he was from. That’s where he was born and raised there.
When he was around, oh about 16 years old (oh, I guess he was 15 years old), he went to
work for one of those big sheep that’s out west of Ogden – Plain City!
BM:
Oh, okay: Plain City.
JH:
Plain City. That’s where he was from, Plain City. And then these big sheep outfits was
out toward the north side of Salt Lake. And they brought the first herd of sheep over in
this valley and he came over as a camp jack.
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�BM:
Hmm. What is a camp jack?
NH:
Cook! [Laughing]
JH:
No, he was just an all-around –
NH:
Handyman.
JH:
Handyman, yeah and a cook.
NH:
Except for your dad, he had to do his own! [Laughing]
JH:
My dad, later on after he had gotten married, he bought some sheep and he came over
and homesteaded that ranch up here. And part of that ranch is up there where you are
coming down the canyon, you know and making loops around?
BM:
Um-hmm.
JH:
And all the buildings back there? Well, that belonged to him and it went over north of
there, oh about a mile and a half. And it come this way almost over above the middle hill
over here. He homesteaded and bought; that’s where his spring and fall range is that. And
his summer range was all over Swan Creek Peak up here.
BM:
So tell me some of the landscape features. Before we turned the tape on you mentioned
some hollows and some areas. Take us like from the south end to the north end of where
he worked his sheep.
JH:
Well, our grandpa had his sheep over here on Swan Creek. His summer range was all
over Swan Creek; it was a sweet setup. You didn’t have to trail anywhere to get on the
horse. And it didn’t have very far to come off the horse. And most generally it had to be
off the Cache National by the 10th of September, they had to come off. Most of the guys
had to come off anyway to cut their lambs out and ship their lambs.
BM:
And who checked to make sure that you were off?
JH:
Hmm.
NH:
Forest Rangers.
JH:
Forest Rangers. I don’t know, I don’t really remember having them come and check us
off. I know right up here west of the golf course, over the top of the hill, they had what
they called the “Counting Trail” where you took your sheep on, on the first day of July.
And the ranger sits there on his horse and he counted your sheep on. And if you had more
in that herd than you was supposed to have, you had a problem on your hands trying to
keep that many sheep out of your herd and then finding a way to get them down home!
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�So you was pretty darn careful about going on that forest with the same amount of sheep
that your permit called for.
BM:
Does your permit change from year to year, as far as the number you can take?
JH:
Nope. Ours didn’t, some of them did.
BM:
And that would depend upon what?
JH:
That depended on that Forest Ranger. He’d come, oh generally he’d get around our herd
about, oh right around the first of September (some time in there) and he’d ride that
whole summer range: Dad’s whole allotment. And check the whole thing over. And that
was one thing my dad was always proud about, he had the best allotment of the whole
bunch because he didn’t overgraze.
BM:
So he sounds like he was very responsible with it.
JH:
He was. You never saw a more honest man in your life. I can blow about him!
[Laughing] I don’t think he would steal a six penny nail from anybody. But he knew
livestock, he knew what they were about and he knew what he had to do to keep them to
the point where they was going to make him some money.
BM:
And it sounds also like taking care of the landscape for next year’s grazing and –
JH:
Exactly, um-hmm. That’s right. Your watersheds – that was another thing that the old
ranger we had up here. I could remember him, he rode and old white horse. And he
would come over to our camp every Tuesday when he was up in there. Our range was
clear up – you know where the Beaver Mountain ski lift is? Okay, the actual Beaver
Mountain is not there. The actual Beaver Mountain at that time (and it still is) right across
Beaver to the north east. That big old mountain back in there –
BM:
Um-hmm.
JH:
Okay. Our allotment went right up to the flats, the Beaver Flats. You go up through that
narrow canyon there, right up to the Beaver Flats. And there was a saw mill up there a
little ways and dad’s allotment ended right by that saw mill.
BM:
Do you remember the name of the saw mill?
JH:
I’m trying to remember. The man that owned that saw mill lived down there in St.
Charles. Hmm.
NH:
[Inaudible]
[Laughing]
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�JH:
Yeah, oh I’ll tell you my memory is just –
NH:
Oh about the saw mill and about St. Charles. Was it an Allred?
JH:
No. He had that mill up on the Beaver Flat.
BM:
Well, maybe we’ll think of it as we’re chatting.
NH:
I’ll go get the phonebook and go through it – that’s what I’ve done before!
[Laughing]
BM:
That’s a pretty big allotment.
JH:
It is. It wasn’t very wide. It came down as you come up above the Beaver turnoff and you
start making them turns, you know that kid has always had saddle horses in there.
BM:
Hmm, um-hmm.
JH:
And that’s one guy I’d like to take a boot to!
[Laughing]
BM:
Because?
JH:
He treats his horses like, I’d better not say it.
NH:
He does not feed them. He does not take care of them.
JH:
He stands those horses in the hot, boiling sun with a saddle on them, waiting for
somebody to come along and rent them. What in the world is wrong with that pine grove
behind them – taking them over there and tying them in the shade so they got a place at
least they’re not burning up!
BH:
Sometimes when we’re down that way, you know, I have to hang on to him so then
there’s no stopping and going out there and turning them horses loose!
[Laughing]
JH:
Well, I love a horse. You can’t beat a good horse and the only way you have a good horse
is to treat that horse like you would treat your own self. You know? I’ve always had a
horse that will work for me and the danged horse, just like a buddy.
BM:
So you had horses too? On the ranch?
JH:
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
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�BM:
So you didn’t have mules?
JH:
No. We didn’t have any mules, thank heaven! [Laughing]
BM:
So the horses then you used when you went out with the sheep in the summer time? You
would pack horses?
JH:
Yeah.
BM:
Okay. Do you remember any of the names of your horses?
JH:
Oh yeah! We had Old Lass and I had a little mare that I’d bought from an old fellar out
here (he had sheep and this was years and years later). The horses he used to put on his
sheep camp and I herded sheep for him a couple of years out here anyway, out on his
spring and fall range up on the top of south of Lake Town.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
And he had some horses that were so old, they would start to stumble with you and
before they’d quit stumbling they’d be 100 feet down the road with you. They were just
wore out. So his son-in-law got a chance to buy some young mares that came off the
Carter desert out here in Wyoming.
BM:
The Carter desert?
JH:
The Carter desert.
BM:
So is that around Kemmerer?
JH:
It’s east of Kemmerer and a little bit north, kind of over towards Piney area.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JH:
That’s where them horses come from. So the son-in-law, when we came off the summer
range that fall (and I wound up herding his sheep that time out here on the spring and fall
range). So Paul rounded up all but that one horse that I was riding – a big old black horse
(he could stumble over his own shadow) and he rounded up those old sheep camp horses
and he traded them to this guy that had bought a bunch of those little Morgan mares.
[End Tape 1: B; Begin Tape 2: A]
BM:
Tape 2, John Hansen and Side A.
Go ahead with the Morgan thoroughbred story.
JH:
[Laughing] Well, anyway, Paul he traded those old, wore out sheep camp horses. They
were in good shape, they were fat and so they brought a lot of money. They was buying
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�them for fox feed. And so Paul, he just made a trade with them for some of those little
thoroughbred Morgan mares.
BM:
Okay. Hang on – for fox feed, who is raising foxes? In the Valley?
JH:
Yeah. There was (I can’t remember his first name), but he was a stock from down here at
Fish Haven. He used to have foxes. But I think he’d gone out of business by then. But
most of the foxes came from over east of Preston, Idaho.
BM:
Okay. And they’re raising foxes for what particular industry?
JH:
Fur; for the fur industry.
BM:
Fur? So coats and other -- ?
JH:
Yeah, just for their coats, just for their fur. So when the boss seen them little mares, he
really blew up. He cussed that son-in-law up one side and down the other one and he
said, “Nothing but a bunch of junk!” He says, “Ain’t worth nothin’!” He says, “they’re
not even worth having on the ranch! Just load ‘em up and get ‘em out of here!” he says.
And he says, “We’ll go somewhere and find some horses!”
Paul told him, he said, “Well, we can go find you some horses Tom, but you’re going to
pay around $1,000 a piece for them horses if you expect your riders to get anything done
on this ranch.”
“Well what did you sell them others for?”
“Because,” he said, “they had run out from under us too many times. They get right down
on their knees,” he said, “and plow their nose in the dirt. You’re going to kill some of
your men one of these days!”
So they argued and argued and argued and no sir, Tom, he wanted them horses, them
little mares. (What was it I think – there was five of them, five of them.) So the boss, he
was going on like that and I had my eye on one of them and I just thought, “Well, you
know, I’ll betcha I could get that mare for 50 bucks.” So while he was going on, “It ain’t
worth nothin’, it ain’t worth nothin’.” When he stopped, I just, “Tom, I’ll just give you 50
bucks for that little mare right there, if you will sell her to me right now.”
“Get her outta here! You’re on!”
[Laughing]
JH:
I hadn’t even talked to her! We were a little short on cash anyhow!
BH:
Was this Snooks?
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�JH:
Yeah.
NH:
Yeah, this is Snooks.
BH:
This is Snooks that nobody could ride except when Dad came home, she would saddle up
to Dad. I remember her.
JH:
So anyway, I rode her out that winter. There was never a time she ever bucked with me. I
just made good friends with her and once in a while I’d sneak her a little sugar
[laughing], and a little extra oats or something, you know. And we got along just
wonderful. And then when I quit herding sheep and went back to punching cows, that
thing turned into the best cow horse we ever had on this place.
BM:
But you were the only one that could ride her?
JH:
Yeah.
NH:
Yes.
BH:
She ran away with me on her.
BM:
Oh!
BH:
I was coming down with Uncle Stan [he] was bringing the cows down, and I was up there
with him and I begged him to get on her. And he thought, well if he had a hold of her
bridle maybe I could. So he gave in and let me get on top of her, and she got away from
him and ran away with me.
BM:
Oh my! How old were you Bonnie?
BH:
Oh, about nine I think, right around there.
NH:
I think, yeah.
BH:
And we were headed for the highway.
BM:
Oh!
BH:
And there was a fence at the bottom of the pasture there. And I could see that fence
coming – I don’t know what happened, but I fell off of it, right in the middle of a cow
pie!
[Laughing]
JH:
Soft landing! [Laughing] Soft landing!
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�BH:
And Uncle Stan said, “Don’t you tell your mother that I let you get on that horse!”
[Laughing]
JH:
He didn’t like to ride her very good because she got out from under him a time or two.
She’d turn with a cow. I just talked to that little mare and she just picked it up as a
natural, you know. She’d lay that shoulder right into a cow and that cow got ornery and
tried to go around her, why she’d just – and that cow would just over. And the cow would
generally go on her knees, you know. But when that cow got up that little sorrow mare
had her right on the loop of the tail that sticks up – POP! She could take the hair right off,
and that cow would bellar, man! She’d get back in the herd and she’d stay here!
[Laughing]
JH:
But what I’m going to tell you about, you’re not going to believe, I know! That’s the only
cow horse I rode from Goodwin’s. The only cow horse that I ever seen that you could get
a cow in a fence, going down that fence and trying to get by you, and you’d reach over
and grab that cow by the nose and make her back up, you know. She’d get over there in
the fence. When that cow tried to get between her and that fence again, she planted all
fours and run them back, sure as the cow on your right. You just take your rope, once that
brass horn [clapping hands] banged her on the nose and she behaved herself. That cockeyed horse was running backwards almost as fast as she could front ways! [laughing]
The first time she done that with Stan, he wasn’t looking for it (and I’d warned him about
her; I said, “when your tailing cows with her, she will run backwards if that goes to go by
you and she don’t want it to, she’ll plant all fours and run backwards with him and she’ll
leave you sittin’ right there on her nose!”)
[Laughing]
And she did, a time or two!
BM:
So how old, when you picked this mare out and said, “That’s the one I want.” How old
was she when you got her?
JH:
How old was she? Three.
BM:
Okay. And what made you choose her, when you looked at her?
JH:
Just her confirmation, her build, her legs and up here between her ears is where I always
looked. If there’s a bump up there, get rid of them; but if there’s a good roll, a good roll is
a smart horse.
I’m going to check my horses when I go back home! If any of them have a bump, they’re
in trouble!
BM:
[Laughing]
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�JH:
If they’ve got a big bump, they can be ornery son of a guns.
BM:
All be darned.
JH:
Anyway, I’ve ridden some nasty cow horses that would get dried out from under you.
BM:
So you had to replace Snooks when? How long did you have her?
JH:
I had that little mare for, oh gee, I guess 10 years or more.
NH:
A good ten years.
BM:
And you eventually retired her because?
JH:
Yeah, I had to. I had her over on the east side of the lake, rounding up one fall. I was
trying to get them through a fence. I had quite a herd of cows and I was all alone and
trying to move them over into another pasture where the last ten days that I was going to
be over there with them for the season. And they was giving me a bad time, that little
mare she just worked so hard. Finally when I stopped to let them get through the gate,
why as usual, some ornery old heifers broadside the gateway and nothing could go
through. And that’s when my brother come along, about that time, him and a couple of
his buddies. (No, that wasn’t my brother that was Randall.)
NH:
Yeah, that was Randall our oldest son.
JH:
It was late in the afternoon, well quite late because he’d come from college over here and
he brought his girlfriend with him. They all jumped out of the car and run over there
hooting and hollering and got the cows a going. So when they got through the gate I got
off to go shut the gate of course and I looked around – I could always drop the reins and
that mare would stay there when I came back if it was an hour – went over and shut the
gate, come back and she was just a quivering. So that was the last work she ever done for
me. When I put her in the pasture here at the place, and she died here.
BM:
Ahh.
JH:
So.
BM:
Oh, I bet that was a hard loss.
NH:
Oh it was a sad day.
JH:
It was.
NH:
That was a sad, sad day.
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�BM:
So she was about 18-19 – no, how old was she? She worked 10 or more years, so she was
probably about 15.
JH:
Um-hmm. Yeah, she would have been right around 15 I guess when she died.
BM:
Those are probably big hooves to fill.
JH:
No.
BM:
No?
JH:
Nope. That’s another reason why I chose her. It didn’t cost the cock-eye much to shoe
her; she was easy to shoe. I never had a problem putting a shoe on that mare right from
day one. She always wore a double odd shoe. It didn’t take much to put shoes on her and
she could get through brush for the bigger horses, but take half a day. But you had to be a
rider to ride her in tall sagebrush, because she would go over the tallest of it! She’d just –
like that.
BM:
Oh, just jump it.
JH:
Yeah, she’d jump it.
BM:
Holy cow. And you were hanging on!
JH:
I’ll say I was hanging on!
[Laughing]
BM:
So who did you replace her with?
JH:
Randall, our oldest son, he bought a horse from (now I can’t remember his name, over
there, he would live in North Logan) – no, no. He would be in North Logan now, but he
had those American saddle horses.
BM:
Oh, okay.
JH:
He had this three year old – a real pretty, sorrow horse, with three white socks and a blaze
face –
BM:
Another mare?
JH:
No. It was a gelding. And he bought that horse and –
NH:
[Inaudible]
JH:
Yeah, Loy Robinson was his name.
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�[Inaudible chattering in the background]
JH:
Anyway, he bought that horse from him and he was just halter-broke. And he brought
him over here and we saddled him up and warmed him up walking him around the corral.
And I got on my horse and just snubbed for him a little out here in the field; got him over
there behind where Randall’s house is now and I just reached over and unsnapped the
halter rope and turned him loose.
[Laughing and chattering]
JH:
Well that horse just stopped, you know. So I just turned around and headed back down to
the corral. And the horse he just (we named him Mac, well I guess I did), and the horse,
he just followed us for a little ways. And then pretty soon that horse hit a running walk
and he never stopped until he got to the barn door. And that’s the way that horse was for
all the time we had him here on the ranch. You could get him up in the morning, jump
him out of the truck over there when you was going to round up or move to another
pasture, to get him out of there (just about the time the sun was coming up and by about
six o’clock), that night you could aim him back to the truck and he would hit that running
walk and that sucker was there until he got to the truck. He just had that much guts to
him. He was just an all around good horse. He was fast, you could rope off of him.
Randall never really rode him a heck of a lot!
NH:
He wasn’t here!
JH:
Well, that’s right, he was. He was in college most of the time.
NH:
College and on a mission, and –
JH:
Yeah, and then he went on a mission, didn’t he? Yeah.
NH:
Yeah. He got one year of college and then he went on his mission.
BM:
But this is a horse that other people could ride, unlike Snooks who -- ?
JH:
Well, I wouldn’t have put a kid on him. I wouldn’t have put somebody on him that, you
know, wasn’t very used to riding for the simple reason if you got him around a cow, you
better be ready to ride because he’s watching. If you’re just riding by a cow, if he figured
that thing was going to turn and go somewhere, he wanted to go right now. You know, a
typical cow horse, cutting horse.
I only rode one other horse that was better than he was for cutting cows and that was
Ross Jackson over here at Randolph one spring (the spring I got out of the Army). He had
this American saddle mare – beautiful thing. Solid black, four white socks and a white
blazed face and she had kind of a light mane and tail. He gave me her to ride in my
stream and he says, “That’s been my personal horse, you take care of her.” And he says,
“She’ll get your work done, but boy you better be ready to ride!” Well, he wasn’t
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�kidding! That horse knew more in a half-book second about what a cow was going to do
than I would know in all the year. First thing we did, went down to the field. That was in
the last part of April, when it was nice and slick down there with slush on the ground. We
gathered up a bunch of cows with little calves and riding around them, got them all
bunched, ready to go up to the corral so we can put them in the corral above the road, so
we could brand the calves tomorrow. Well first thing that happened: here goes a little
calf, gone across the field – bam! That mare had that calf so cock-eyed quick! She caught
that calf and spun and me just still hanging out there! I had to grab hot air!
[Laughing]
I wasn’t looking for it. Well, for one thing it was so slick, you know, I was afraid she was
going to go out from under me. But he had some pretty good shoes on. They used horse
shoes in those days, not these little pressed plates that will go out from under you. And so
they had toe carts and heel caulks for them, and that’s the only thing that saved Dave!
That cock-eyed mare had that calf back to mama right fast. And me hanging for dear life
just trying to be there too! When I learned how to ride her, I knew what she was, you
know. So I was watching her and we got along like two peas in a pod.
We went out that spring and rode over to – well that was on the edge of the Carter desert
where you had about 200 head of cows with unbranded calves that he’d just pulled off of
a feedlot over there somewhere and set them up. And we had to go get them the next day
and trail them clear back through Kemmerer then pert near to Randolph over here in the
Crawford Mountains. And that was the nastiest spring I’ve ever seen. The first day,
everything was peachy; it was nice and warm coming across that alkaline desert. I didn’t
know where we was going, and the other rider that was with me – and to top it all off, to
make it even nastier, we had 100 head of yearlings in there and they wanted to go home.
And the cows was taking it pretty easy and it was hot. So he was riding the point and I
was back on bringing up the tail end. And you couldn’t see your nose in front of your
face for the alkaline dust flying. The next day the boss went and borrowed a sheep camp
from a sheep man over there to put behind his truck to follow us through and then he had
to take all of them mountain roads around to meet us here and there. In the middle of that
night, the wind come up and it got cold! Man, it did get cold! And the whole herd got up
and monkeying around so we had to get up and keep them together. And by about four
o’clock that morning, here come the sleet. And man!
I had a real good pair of bull hide chaps and I had it treated – what the old Mexican sheep
herders told me to treat them new chaps with. They were roughouts. “Don’t put oil on
them, don’t put oil on them – make too cold; when come time for cold weather, no bed,
no bed. You get fur hung up under horse belly and get throwed and hurt.” Well what are
you going to treat it with? “Go find yourself a big pine tree, with lots of pine gum. Take
big ball of pine gum,” then he says, “you go put that in a pot and then get some minks
foot oil and you put with pine gum; heat it good and mix it up real good. Go buy yourself
a new wash rag if you have to and use that wash rag to put that on your chaps. Lay them
out there on something flat and work that in.” He says, “It’d take you three or four days.”
And I said, “Well, pine gum, that will make those chaps so stiff I can’t get into them at
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�all!” “No rain go through, no rain go through and it will do cold, it will do cold,” he says.
“You fix them chaps like I tell you and you be mighty glad you did.”
Well that was one time I was mighty glad I did. The chaps, they stayed just right – they
were fairly stiff you know -- just to hold their shape. And I could sit on a horse and I was
covered down to my in steps on my boots and the water run off them and never got
anywhere near damp inside at all. When we road for four days and four nights on that
trail in the most miserable, cold storm you ever wanted; calves going in every direction
on the tail end and me trying to hold them. And every time Casey come back to try to
help me, the yearlings would take off and run. So we’d have to bunch the works together
again and lose time a doing it.
BM:
And how many are you moving at this time?
JH:
We had, I think there was 215 head of cows with new calves. Well the calves was
probably about like a month old calf. And then there was 100 head of those miserable,
lousy yearling heifers.
[Indistinguishable]
[Laughing]
JH:
We battled and fought that through and out in that country, in that desert, there is washes
to beat the band; and I wish I could remember the name of them. Because when you
picked up some of these books and read them – he’ll tell you about some of them places
you’ve been.
There was two washes: one was a big, deep, wide wash and another one was smaller.
And I read his books where it’s mentioned both of those washes right out here in
Wyoming, by name. When we’d cross those things with that herd, that was all alkali
country and just as slick as it could be.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JH:
And you’d get down in those cock-eyed things and you’d have a time of getting out.
Then when I’d come along on the tail end, invariably I’d have about 30 to 40 head of
them cock-eyed little calves on the tail-end, and ma up there bellering on the other side,
and them calves trying to run back. And that mare just worked herself silly to keep them
calves from getting away. If you ever wanted to see a smart animal – brother, there’s a
smart animal: a horse.
Well, we finally got through those washes and up the other side and finally, oh I guess
about 4 o’clock in the afternoon why, it quit sleeting. It kind of shot off, you know, and
then oh man, did it cold. And then Keith come riding back to me and he said, “We
haven’t got very much farther to go John,” he says, “we only got about ten miles so we’re
going to be coming up on Old Lady Wheeler’s ranch. Now that’s a big ranch, they’ve got
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�great big cattle corrals in front of that big, old house. The house, it’s a two-story house,
it’s got a veranda clear around the top story and around the bottom.” And he says, “When
we get there,” he says, “we gotta be careful.”
[Remembering] Zeeler! Zeeler. Old Lady Zeeler! That was her name! [Laughing] That’s
what he called her anyhow! Old Lady Zeeler. “Now,” he says, “you could tell her for a
mile off, you can see her for a mile off; she sat big. And she’ll have a great, big, old,
black coat on from the top of her head, right down dragging on the ground.” And he said,
“If she comes out here,” he says, “you better come help me stop them. Because,” he says,
“I don’t think the boss is going to get over there in time to go talk to her. She’ll take a
shot at you!” Oh my Lord! I said, “Well where is Frank?” And he said, “He’s going
around there right now, he ought to be around there pretty quick now.” He says, “He’ll be
there by the time we get there, I’m sure. Let’s just hope that he gets to talk to her and get
permission to get these cock-eyed cows in that corral tonight so we don’t have to night
ride.”
Well, we kept a going and we kept a going, and I didn’t think we was ever going to get
there. I could see that one black spot, see that big, old ranch house sitting over there. And
there was a little grove of willows in a little creek just between us and that ranch house
and the willows weren’t very tall, but I could see the top of that house and there was that
black spot. And I watched that black spot get bigger and bigger [laughing]. And I just
could see old Keith – now he was holding the leaders up all he could, but he just about
had them all. One time we got almost over there and then she stood up on the porch and
you know what she had in her hand? A double-barrel shotgun. She pulled out from under
that big, old, black coat and she aimed that right -- , “Let’s pull it up, let’s pull it up.”
And boy, everything come to a halt. And Keith, he was sitting on his horse and
wondering whether he was going to get shot or not, and so was I! And here come the boss
– he finally made it there! Drove up into the yard, and then she knew who he was. So he
talked to her and asked her, he said, “We’ve just had an awful time in this storm. I
wonder if we could put these cows in corral tonight?” He says, “These guys, they’s give
out, so’s their horses. They’re wet and cold. If we could just put them cows in the corral
tonight,” he says, “we’ll be out of here at daylight in the morning.” “Well…I recon you
can,” she says, “if you know how to open that gate. Is there any one of the three of you
that knows how to open the gate?” Oh and Frank says, “You bet! I’ll get it open.”
[Laughing]
That old corral was made out of poles – I guess it had been there forever, you know. And
that gate was, oh I guess almost 20 feet wide! A pole gate. Old Frank, you’d just about
have to have a saddle horse and lariat rope and pull that gate around to get in, you know.
And old Frank, he just worked on that until he was almost black in the face and I hollered
out, “For Lord’s sake! Go over and help him get that gate open! These calves are going to
get away from me!” So he did; he went over. He just dropped the rope on the end of the
gate and helped Frank pull that gate open. And then we got them in and put them in that
corral that night. You know what happened? He pulled that cheap cap right down there in
front of that old girl’s –
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�[End Tape 2: A; begin Tape 2: B]
BM:
Side 2. And we’re continuing with the Zeeler Ranch story.
BH:
The sheep wagon?
JH:
Those two guys, they just jumped in that truck and they said, “We’ll see you in the
morning John.” And left me there.
BH:
With Lady Zeeler?
JH:
Yeah! So I had to get old Keith’s saddle horse and then she was still standing up there
with that shotgun tucked under her arm, you know, watching the whole thing.
BH:
How old were you, Dad?
JH:
I don’t know, how old was I?
BH:
Were you married?
JH:
No! That was before we got married. Just about – we got married on the 16th day of May
of –
NH:
I think that was – around the last part of April –
JH:
It was, it was.
BM:
This is after you got home from the war?
JH:
Oh yeah.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
That was the only job I could find. You couldn’t even buy a job when I got home. And
me and my buddy, we had quite a stinker pulled on us out there. But that’s not the story!
Anyway –
BM:
So wait, she’s got the shotgun, she still has it in hand and you’re alone on the ranch with
her.
JH:
Yeah, that’s right. So I looked up at her and I went over and got that horse. She had a
heck of a nice barn that hadn’t caved in yet. She had all kinds of sheds you know, all her
sheds were all there, her colt sheds but they’d all caved in. And I didn’t know whether I’d
dare go put the horses in the barn or not. Finally she said, “Well, are you going to go get
the horse and put him up or just stand there?” “Yes ma’am.” [Laughing] So I went and
Keith’s horse and took him over to the barn and she says, “I guess you can tell a barn
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�from a lean-to?” “Yes ma’am.” “Now put them in there, make sure you give them some
hay. There’s some hay in there. Them horses have worked all day and they look like it.”
Anyway, I took care of the horses and come back over the camp and she said, “You got
any dry wood at that camp?” I said, “I hope so.” And she said, “Enough to keep you
warm tonight?” “Well, I think so.” “Alright,” she says, “alright, I guess you better get at
it.” And she turned around and went in the house. And I went over and climbed in the
tent and built a fire and got myself some supper and climbed in bed and had one hell of a
bad sleep all night, worried about her and that double-barreled shotgun.
[Laughing]
And those two jerks never got back over there until 7 o’clock the next morning and we
had a 20 mile trail to go yet! Thank heaven it had quit storming.
BM:
But the cow, you were able to put in a fenced enclosure so you don’t have to worry about
them?
JH:
Yep, didn’t have to worry about them. Oh boy, I’ll tell you what! That was a life saver
for me. When those guys got there and then we had that 20 mile trail to go and that was
back toward that highway that comes from Evanston over to Kemmerer.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
Not in the middle of it, we would come up from the Zeeler Ranch and hit that highway.
And then once we hit the highway, we had about 10 miles to go towards Kemmerer. And
then there was a big cattle outfit just west of the highway there, and that’s where we went
with them. And we took them up there and that man was a good friend of Frank’s, so he
let us put in to pasture there for the rest of the day. And then he said, “You guys get out
of here and go home. I’ll have my riders bring them out of the pasture,” he says, “if they
need to come out. But I think they’re alright right there until tomorrow morning. Now
Frank,” he says, “where is your branding irons and your tools and stuff?” Frank said,
“Right here in the truck.” He said, “Well leave them, my boys ain’t got a thing to do
tomorrow and we can take care of them cows tomorrow.” Then he said, “You guys can
come back and help us push them up on the range,” he said, “the day after tomorrow and
settle them down and distribute them.”
BM:
So they brand them and then they’re going to disperse them up here on the Cache?
JH:
No. Over in the Crawford mountains.
BM:
Oh, Crawfords.
JH:
Uh-huh. So that’s what we did. And the next day, why we was back over there. No! Next
day they branded them and then it was the day after that we went over. And he had, oh,
he had eight cowboys on his ranch. He had a big old ranch there – he had eight cowboys,
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�and then there was just me and Keith and Frank joined them. We put the whole mass –
I’ll bet we, well we had over 2,000 head of cattle.
BM:
Oh!
JH:
In that herd. And we pushed them up on that summer range of theirs over in the
Crawfords. But then we had to pair up a lot of them to get different bunches. Then we
just took them out and put them in different places over in there, in different pastures.
Took all day.
BM:
And so you moved them and then you got them up and then had a day and then you
moved them up into the Crawford Mountains. And then did his cowboys pretty much stay
with them and work with them for the summer?
JH:
Well, a lot of the fellows over here in Randolph and Woodruff run cattle up in there and
they all work together. So come roundup time, they all rounded at the same time. And I
guess, according to that young son of ours (our youngest son, Mill), I guess come roundup time they had gala outfit going up there: work all day, then drink all night and play
cards.
[Laughing]
NH:
They still do!
JH:
Yeah, they still do. Our son-in-law runs cattle out there, and he’s a bishop – I don’t think
he joined in with the boozing though. I don’t think he ever did much of that anyway!
BM:
Now was that the same time period – because you talked about getting the animals off the
forest up here by September 10th. So were the Crawfords about the same time?
JH:
Yeah, um-hmm, ordinarily.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
There was a reason for that, it was a good one. Because you know, ordinarily your deer
hunt came along in October, about the middle of October. And so to bring them off of
there, by that time your feed is pretty well gone anyway. I’ve seen my dad come off the
forest ten days quicker than that, just to make sure that he wasn’t going to have to go
back over something they’d been over.
They would come off about that time to get out of the way, so they would have time to go
back up and ride for strays. He always got a good two weeks up here to get – and then
you’d never get them all out. The snow has to drive them out. That was one of the
reasons why we had to come off on the tenth day of September. Because they’d figured
you’d had enough time to graze those animals, then you had time to go back up and make
sure and ride for strays, because you’re always short.
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�BM:
Now you mentioned going in that the foresters were there checking your numbers for
your permit.
JH:
Yeah.
BM:
Were they also there when you came out?
JH:
There were times I ever saw when we came off that they counted us off.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
They never did count us off, no. I don’t know what they did with the other guys, the other
herds of sheep; it was the same way with the cattle. No, they would count cattle, but
ordinarily when I rode for this old fellow out here (I managed his ranch for a while) and
he runs cows up here above the ridge. The forest ranger would come and tell you which
gate to put them in on the forest reserve line fence.
BM:
Now which ridge is this that you’re talking about?
JH:
This is Long Ridge.
BM:
Long Ridge, okay.
JH:
Uh-huh; right above the Sweetwater Park.
BM:
Now, so the forester was there to direct you where they should go – which was the best
pasture at that time?
JH:
They gave you a pasture to put them in. And that pasture was the one that you had for the
summer. It was up to you to ride that pasture and make sure that your stock was there.
You all worked together – you always had cattle get out and go on another guy’s pasture
– so you worked together. And you’d go over and you’d pick up their strays in your
pasture and take it back to them, and they’d bring theirs over to you. And they had a
regular rider for the summer and he kind of watched out for that and helped you out, and
then he did all the salting – they’d put all the salt out.
BM:
And how often was the salt put out?
JH:
Just whatever was needed. Now, that’s another thing that these people need to know. It’s
crucial to a cattle operation – it’s not so bad for sheep because you carry your salt with
you and put it in boxes for a night, you know. And then you’re not leaving a tromped
down place. Well same way with those salt areas for cattle. That rider would go distribute
so many blocks out in one pasture, because quite often he was always moving from one
pasture to a new pasture. So he’d go and put that salt out – so many blocks that he figured
that those cows was going to take for so many days. Then when it comes time to change
that pasture, he’d go check on those salt grounds and if there was any salt left, he moved
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�it. And moved it ahead to where he was going. And if you had a real good rider, why you
know, you didn’t have to worry about it. You knew your cows had the salt in front of
them that was needed, and there wasn’t excess stuff to bring excess cattle in at one time.
BM:
Now he’s carrying this on a pack horse?
JH:
Yeah.
BM:
And these are blocks? Like 50 pound blocks?
JH:
Um-hmm, yep. Regular, 50 pound block of salt.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
And if a certain cattle man wanted his cattle to have access to iodized block, he got the
iodized block, and that particular cattleman furnished the block.
BM:
Oh, okay. So would the cattleman drop off the blocks and then the cowboy would come
and pick them up and take them?
JH:
Yeah, mm-hmm, yeah. He’d distribute that right up here – I’m talking about, have you
ever been up Temple Fork?
BM:
Yes.
JH:
Okay. Right up on the flat, right up on the flat they had a pretty good corral back there;
made of poles tight enough so the livestock couldn’t get in, not even the elk or the deer.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JH:
The association would deliver the salt and whatever else was needed, to that point. And
then that summer that range rider would go there to pick up what he needed.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
And if he had to go like south of there, you get over to (what’s it called?), Mud Lake? Or
towards the Hardware Ranch?
BM:
Um-hmm.
JH:
Why, he’d have to bring his Jeep up (most generally they had the same rider there for
years), knew what he was doing, he had a Jeep; he’d go load up the salt that he wanted to
put on those other salt grounds and leave it there and then he’d come and get his horse
and his pack horse and go distribute from there. Because it was too far to carry that salt
on a horse’s back. Salts mean to blocks of salt to carry. And I’ve seen it wear a hole right
in a horse’s back.
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�BM:
Ooh.
JH:
So that’s the way they did things up there and it worked out good. This guy I worked
with – it was KB Hansen that bought this old ranch out here. And I worked for him for
four years. And he ran cattle down – and this is where I got to know a lot of the Cache
Valley boys over there. I rode with them for three seasons up in there; all up in Temple
Fork area and all through Tony Grove and all that area. Better bunch of guys I’ve never
worked with.
BM:
So when you were up in those areas, what other kind of people did you see up in Logan
Canyon and Temple Fork and Tony Grove?
JH:
At that time, I rarely saw anybody. Of course I wasn’t up there all of the time. I did go up
and help that rider occasionally when he’d need some help; I’d throw my horse in the
truck and go up and help him. If he had something that had got away and he needs some
help, why I’d go up and help him and generally there would be a rider or two coming
from Logan up.
BM:
A rider that was working cattle or sheep?
JH:
Yeah. One was salt man, one was a cattle owner. And we would get together and we
would go get them put back together again for him. They were just a nice bunch of guys
to work with. There was only one or two. One of those guys, you probably remember.
Had all that trouble there west of Logan out there by the ball goal where that crossed the
slough and got hit and killed that woman?
BM:
Yes! That was just in the last few years.
JH:
Yeah, about what? Two, three years ago?
BM:
Right, right.
JH:
I rolled with him all one fall – we just happened to get on the same crew at round-up
time. And I’d never met a nicer guy than him! My gosh, you know! And when I read
what was going on, what happened to him in the paper, I couldn’t believe it. And I got to
thinking (because I didn’t know him very much) about that big, wide ball pit I guess you
could say down that side of that road. And I’d see them cattle over in there – knew where
they was – I even hauled a load of these cattle down at round-up time I guess it was last
fall that I was up there and rode with them. He had one load too many that he could load
and they would have had to stay there in the corral up there all night and half the next
day. So I told him, I said, “Well, I’ve only got five head up here.” And, I said “Criminy I
can load them myself when I come back. I’ll just throw them in the truck and follow you
down there and we’ll have them down there.” Well, you’d have thought I’d done him the
biggest favor in the world! I don’t know that I did. I just came back and loaded our two or
three in the truck, it was a simple matter. We had a real good corral there. Of course I was
all alone, and then I had to lock up everything before I left! [Laughing]
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�BM:
Where was this corral again?
JH:
What is it they call it? It’s down towards the bottom of Tony there. You know where the
new highway ended off?
BM:
Um-hmm.
JH:
Okay. Then you go down the road there about, oh what? About three quarters of a mile.
So on the right-hand side of the road, and I want to call it Bunchgrass, but the Bunchgrass
pasture is back up toward the north –
BM:
So you’re not in Franklin Basin are you?
JH:
Nope, not quite. You know where Red Banks picnic ground is?
BM:
Oh sure! Sure.
JH:
Okay, well Bunchgrass is just south of that picnic ground, back up in the timber there.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
They’re quite a ways up there. It goes clear back up there almost to Tony Lake.
BM:
Hmm.
JH:
That Bunchgrass, sometimes you could hardly ride a horse through the cock-eyed stuff.
Anyway, that’s where their corral was at. And I guess I haven’t seen it for years and
years and years, but they still use it I know in the fall of the year.
BM:
Can I ask you a question about predators? When you were working with cattle and if
there was a problem with predators and what they might have been? And did anybody
help you with predator issues?
JH:
Not with cattle. We didn’t have any predator problems. In earlier years, before Dad got
into range cows, when there was so many coyotes the cattlemen over there – where the
highways hits just before you get to Bear River there’s Sage Creek Junction.
BM:
Yes.
JH:
Well okay. Some of those cattlemen there was having as much trouble with the coyotes
and their newborn calves as we was having with the coyotes up there and the sheep. Oh
man, there was coyotes anywhere you wanted to look. And the government, they had
trappers out. There was two old men here that trapped coyotes for years; I can remember
them both. They trapped coyotes, they’d shoot them, whatever it took.
BM:
Um-hmm. Did they do something with the skins?
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�JH:
Yeah, yeah. They’d skin them out and they sold those coyote pelts – this was back pretty
much in the days of the Depression when (just to give you an example), my mother used
to give us kids one egg a piece when we went to school in the morning, once in a while.
And the Hodge’s Cache Store was right across the road from where the church office still
is. Well, she’d give us an egg a piece and we’d go in there and we could get a nickel’s
worth of candy.
BM:
[Laughing] And trade for the egg?
JH:
Yeah, in place of the egg. So now, there’s what you were faced with here. Her [wife] and
I, we lived through that. This is something else that these same people that you’re talking
about, don’t know the first thing about. And you know, when I stop and think about it
now, the people here worked together. All of them are farmers and they all had gardens.
All the women, right down to some of the smallest little girls you’ve ever seen that
couldn’t twist a lid on a bottle, knew how to bottle deer meat, or anything else. And they
all worked, you know. I got one of them out here – that’s how she learned to bottle. She
lived through it same time I did. If Mom and Dad didn’t teach that to them kids, you
know (and I know they did). If those kids nowadays, that were kids then don’t teach that
to their kids, they ought to have a hold of your head. Because at least you can live.
We’ve got a real bad situation on our hands here. And you know and it’s going to get
worse. Just as a little example, buying my groceries down here to Montpelier and in three
weeks what I used to buy down there, the same articles that cost me $50 bucks, right on
the scratch, yesterday cost me $71.63. That’s how much they jumped down there. Well,
that’s where we’re going and you know, you talk about these people that need to know
how to take care of your ranges and boy, I couldn’t agree with you more! And thank
heaven we’ve got people like you who are willing to teach them. You know, if we were
taught more about how we went through that in those days – my dad was one of the
handiest men you ever saw (I know I’m bragging about him).
BM:
He was a good person though.
JH:
He could do just about anything. He built this home for us. He was a good carpenter; he
was a good blacksmith shop; he could forge weld. He could build horseshoes from
scratch – just whatever you wanted. He taught me and my brother everything that he
could teach us.
BM:
And you’re probably very proud of what he could do too.
JH:
I’ll say. And he was awful particular about his work. That’s where we’re at today. We
need more people to pass that lesson on to their children and their grandchildren. Now
I’ve got granddaughters – two of the best articles I ever wanted to have canned: corn is
one and deer meat the other. My mother used to cut the corn off the cob and I used to
help her. And I right behind my house here that my grandmother used to use for the same
purpose was a summer kitchen, with a big, old wood stove in it, you know.
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�BM:
Um-hmm, sure.
JH:
And she did all of her canning out there. And Mother would take the sheets off of her bed
and put on the top of that roof (it had a little gradual slope to it). And we cut the kernels
of corn off of them cobs of corn and by the bucketful she would take it up there and
spread it out. And then I had the job –
BM:
So she would dry it in the sun?
JH:
Yeah. Sun dried. And then I had the job of keeping the magpies off!
[Laughing]
JH:
Oh man!
BH:
How did you do that?
JH:
Well, we had to pick of rocks out of the corn a time or two – [laughing] I used a flipper
on them. I was a dead shot with a flipper, I’ll have to admit! [Laughing] She sun-dried
that corn and then she put that corn in a bottle, screw the lid on tight and then come deer
hunting time, why dad would always get a deer. And she took that meat and cut it up in
little squares (about so square) –
BM:
Uh-huh.
JH:
And then she bottled. Well, you never had a better combination of something wonderful
to eat – she took that corn and made gravy out of it and then she mixed that deer meat
with it. And she would pull that deer meat apart with a fork. And oh, boy! You could just
bust!
BM:
Oh, that sounds excellent.
JH:
It was really good you know. Those people in those days knew how to live.
BM:
They did; very talented.
JH:
You know what we got today – I know this is going to be a little bit off of what you were
wanting, but I have to bring this to your attention. You know, I had a lady in here the
other day; she’d bring us quilts for Noreen to hem. A real nice gal – she’s a little bit older
than I am. I am coming 85 and I think Marie would be probably like about 87.
(Whispering: One of the most staunchest democrats you’ve ever seen in your life.) And
she sat here talking to Noreen. And she got to talking about what was going on here with
President Obama. And I was just sitting here in the chair watching her. And finally I said
to her, I said, “Well,” (she was talking about the fighting between the democrats and the
republicans). I said, “Well you know Marie the best cock-eyed” [tape ends]
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�[End Tape 2: B; begin Tape 3: A]
BM:
Three, side one.
Alright finish with the democrat.
JH:
She said, “What did you say?” I said, “Marie, the best thing that ever happened to this
nation was World War II.” [She said] “I can’t understand how you can think that! Look at
all the people and our boys from home that was killed and mangled in that war.” And I
said, “Marie,” I said, “I was right with them.” “Well how do you figure that?” And I said,
“You tell me this, Mrs. Democrat,” [laughing] I said, “When did you ever see the
democrats and the republicans get along better than they did then?”
NH:
Oh, you said the wrong thing to him there!
[Laughing]
JH:
And she thought and she thought and then she looked at me and she was waiting for me, I
guess to say some more. I told her, I said, “You’ve never seen politics go out the window
so fast in all your life. You’re going to have to admit it. Democrats worked with
republicans and republicans worked with democrats because they didn’t have no choice
in the matter! We was broke, just like we are now, and a whole cock-eyed world to fight
this war in and how are you going to do it? Everybody pulled together. Everybody,
because it was death staring them right in the face.”
So I said, “And I hate to think that’s what’s going to happen here, but I’m just scared to
death if they bring them kids out over there now those murderers are going to follow
them right to our shores and we’re going to be worse off than we ever was!” That’s
what’s scaring me. “And one of the biggest problems there,” I said, “now we have got a
lot of people at the head of our government” (just like these young people that you was
talking about), “that think they know, but they haven’t got the experience to handle. So
the rest of us are going to have to get behind them and do something about it.”
BM:
Um-hmm. And they haven’t been destitute; they haven’t been challenged in that way.
JH:
Yeah.
NH:
We’re all going to have to get together and find a boat of some kind and put Obama on it
and send it across the ocean –
[Laughing]
JH:
And a few more people to go with him!
[Laughing]
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�BM:
Okay. Let’s stop there for – it smells like lunch to me.
[Stop and start recording]
BM:
Okay we are continuing with our tape after lunch, here with John Hansen in Garden City.
And we’re going to continue with some of his earliest memories of Logan Canyon. So,
John.
JH:
I guess the earliest that I can ever remember of Logan Canyon was a mighty long time
ago. I think I was probably right around six or seven years old. But the earliest thing I can
remember about Logan Canyon, down the canyon very well, would have been right down
at the bottom of the canyon where you come around that first sharp curve where the city
water line used to come down and cross the road there.
BM:
So this is on the Logan side?
JH:
Yeah, uh-huh. They had just started to widen the road out and they had a steam shovel
there working (and some other equipment). And I’ve been trying to remember the name
of that company. They were a Logan company that was there. It wasn’t Johnsons, but it
was another company from Logan. We’d been to Logan, been downtown and was
coming home and we come around that curve and there was that steam shovel working
there. And he was loading a truck. So we had to stop and wait for him to finish loading
that truck so we could get by him.
At that time, most of the rest of the road clear through the whole canyon was nothing
much more than a wagon track, it was so narrow. Most places you had to pull over and
stop and let the other guy go by you. And on the curves, the same way: you’d go around
those curves awfully slow. I can remember that road up through there so well, and
especially that particular time because that was the first time in my life I’d ever seen a
steam shovel. I’d heard about them, you know, going to school and all that.
BM:
Wait a minute, before you go on. The road, the texture of the road at this time was dirt?
JH:
Yeah.
BM:
And one lane?
JH:
Well, you could call it about a lane and a half [laughing]. And it was all the way through
right down to Garden City. So many places you just have to stop and move over and let
the other guy go by you, or some places or a lot of places of course, why you could pass
each other but you had to be awful cheerful about it.
BM:
How did you get through in the winter time? Wasn’t it muddy?
JH:
It was closed. That road was closed all winter.
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�BM:
Oh, okay.
JH:
They never started keeping that road open (now don’t quote me on this, because I can’t
remember for sure), but when they first started keeping that open I think it was right
around 1938 when they first started to get the equipment to keep it open. For one thing,
they needed those snow throwers real bad because the canyon would close so quick. They
were in short demand and so that kind of hampered the opening of the road, you know, to
keep it open. The first workers from Garden City that worked for the State of Utah on this
side, kept that road open through the winter from Garden City, down to the Temple Fork
(let’s see, it would’ve been down below Temple Fork by quite a little bit); right down
where the new wide highway goes on down the – that’s where the guys from this side had
to keep it open. Because the machinery on the other side – from there on down into
Logan – had all of Logan and Logan area to do. The two men in Garden City was Ross
Hodges and (oh, what the heck was his name?) and Lamont Schofield. They were the two
first men to go to work for the State to keep that road going through the winter. And they
would work all day until late at night and then they would hope that they could get back
up to the road shed to get it open in the mornings.
BM:
So they stayed in the road shed at night?
JH:
No, they came home.
BM:
Oh, they did?
JH:
Um-hmm, yeah they came home. And then they found out that wasn’t going to work very
good. So then they had to put on a second crew from Logan that came up. And then
they’d change shifts. They had people working that road the clock around. They had
people getting hung up in the drifts before these guys could get back the next morning.
And a time or two they couldn’t even get in, they had to walk.
BM:
Where did they walk to?
JH:
Well, they could generally get up to where the overlook area is. They could get that far in
that area with their cars, and then they had to walk from there, clear down to the road
shed. In all that deep snow, that took a lot of time. So they put on two shifts. And that’s
the way it’s been ever since and I think they have done an immaculate job on it all the
time. I don’t know of anybody that’s ever had a lot of problems. You’re going to get
snow blowing across that road and some of those cuts in no matter what you do. So I’m
sure those fellows have had both hands busy to keep that road open, you know. I think
that they did a good job. Of course they’ve had several different crews since that time.
But to get back down to the canyon itself, why I can remember coming up through there
in a car when I was of a young age, you know. Going through to Logan and back, or
wherever. Especially after a rainstorm or in the fall of the year, the mud (because there
was no surface on it, just a gravel road), you could get stuck pretty easy. But I can
remember doing that.
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�And in much later years, why I didn’t have all that much to do down in the canyon itself
for a long time, until after we was married I guess. Our next door neighbor over here and
I, we just love to fish. And we’d put our families together on a Saturday night or a
Saturday morning and take our eats and stuff and go over there just above the Red Banks.
You know where they built that new house crossed, on the west side of the highway?
BM:
Right.
JH:
Well there was a good little campground there and we had fixed up a place, dug a fire pit
and rocked it all up right nice, and Noreen and our good neighbor over there, those two
women would get together and Dad still had a couple of his Dutch ovens left. And I’d go
get them and we’d go up there to fish. And we would fish right from, well from above
there, quite a ways above there; almost up to the confluence of the Beaver and the Logan
rivers. And we’d fish clear down below the Red Banks. And then we’d go back up there
and then ordinarily we’d have all the fish we was entitled to. And then sometimes when
things got crowded there, why, we went down there one time (he and I just went the two
of us), that was on Saturday; I’d see that little creek coming in down there just above the
Red Bank (which was White Pine and I think you mentioned that).
BM:
Um-hmm, um-hmm.
JH:
And I was standing there where that was flowing in to the river and all of a sudden I
could see some pretty nice fish going up. About like that, just real nice pan size. And I
got to wondering how far up there those little suckers would go. So I told Dave about it –
he was on the other side of the creek. So he came across and we started up there (and this
would have been about four o’clock in the afternoon I guess, when we started up White
Pine); we was getting more fish than we had any right to have at all, so we was just
throwing them back. And we got to wondering just how far up there it did go. Well we
didn’t know it went all the way up to White Pine Lake. So by the time we got up there it
was getting pretty close to dark and going up across that little sagebrush flat – just below
– why, that channel was so deep. I guess it would have been about waist deep on me if I
would have fell in it. And there was them cutthroats about like – you could dangle
anything you wanted to put right down on their nose and they would just not pay any
attention to that at all. I don’t think we caught one fish up there.
[Laughing]
The next time we went up, we went all the way up and the same thing happened, right at
the same place. I don’t know where all them fish was getting all their feed from, but boy
there was big, fat ones and you couldn’t get them to bite! No sir. So I tried the treble
hook just to see if I could get one. And I finally did get one. And boy, it was a nice fish
and just as fat as he could be. And that’s the only fish we ever got out of there!
BM:
The only fish, oh! And that was a cutthroat trout?
JH:
That was a cutthroat trout, yep.
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�BM:
Okay. That’s a very special population up there.
JH:
Yeah, um-hmm.
BM:
Wow, those are beautiful fish.
JH:
But talk about beautiful country, boy we’ve got it in this state. Anywhere you want to go.
And it just seems so nice to be able to get in a place like that, you know and enjoy
yourself.
BM:
And so close to your home.
JH:
Yeah, right. Close to home. And then we got acquainted with quite a few of the boys that
came from Logan to fish up there – from just anywhere in Cache Valley. A whole lot of
the fishermen that we saw were Japanese people. Just a whole lot of them.
BM:
Hmm. Why was that?
JH:
Well, that fish and rice are the major food stuff that the Japanese people over there eat.
Fish and rice. I guess you could smell a Japanese soldier a good 20 feet away from you.
You could smell him. And I guess maybe that a lot of bearing on the case. Now rice in
the Philippines is one of their major crops. And they harvest that rice – they thresh it, just
like we did wheat here, same old thresher. And the Japanese they would take that away
from those people. They grow that and they would wait for that rice to ripen to the point
where it was ready to thresh. They even stacked it in round stacks like we used to do
here. And pull those old separators up the side of them. Gosh they had those big, old rice
patties just covered with them. And the Philippine people got very little of it.
Now there’s one thing I would like to tell you about and I don’t know whether you’d like
to include it in this.
BM:
Let’s look where we are here. Good to go.
JH:
What I saw over there –
BM:
Over there, you mean in your World War II –
JH:
Yeah.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
What I saw over there, it would break your heart. Did us. I got shot up a little bit and I
was sent back to a hospital. The other major Philippine island is Lety. Our people had
already cleared Lety Island.
BM:
Now how do you spell that?
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�JH:
L-E-T-Y (I think that’s it). I think it’s L-E-T-Y.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
And they had set up a real big area base hospital there. Well that’s where I wound up;
they flew me clear down there – me and a plane load of other guys. We’re right on the
south side of that – now this hospital is sitting right down on the beach. And there’s a big,
high chain-linked fence. I bet that thing was a good 20 feet high. When we came in there
in those ambulances and we got out, why that chain-link fence was about 50 feet away
from the military hospital. And I’m bringing this to your attention so you can get an idea.
Now there were MPs walking up and down that fence. And I was wondering, and I seen
these signs and wanted to get out of the ambulance. I was close enough I could read one
of those signs and it says, “Do not feed the prisoners. Do not feed the prisoners.” In big,
bold, black letters. You couldn’t miss it. I went, “Prisoners? I didn’t know they would
have a prison down here.”
Now at that same time our boys had come into Manila. And what had happened, they had
got into that big Japanese prison camp and they had freed all those people that are inside
there. And 99% of them were women and children. And that was inside of that
compound. And looking at what was over there would break your heart.
That’s one thing I need to tell you is that the old American soldier has got a heart bigger
than a lard bucket. And if anything is going to get to him it will be what is happening,
especially to little children. There’s nothing but a bunch of skeletons walking around over
there. You see every bone in their body. And had we fed them, had we gave them so
much as chewing gum, it would have killed them on the spot. Because they had not been
there, but just a matter of hours at that particular time (is the way they explained it to us).
They made sure they we wasn’t going to be giving them anything because up in our battle
zone when we’d run across them little kids, you know, we used to get those tropical
candy Hershey bars (about that long and about so wide) and them little kids up there, they
would come around and just, “Chocoletto-zho, chocoletto-zho.” And they were in our crations. So we’d give them a candy bar once in a while, you know.
So that’s what I saw down there. I was down there for (what was it?), nearly three weeks
before I could get this leg back under me.
BM:
Which leg was injured?
JH:
This one.
BM:
Okay, your left leg.
JH:
Uh-huh. Bullet went right down here and come out down here. My buddy stepped up
behind me and took the sole off his boot, went through my leg and clipped the under sole
off of his boot – he stepped that close to me.
Wow.
BM:
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�JH:
Then that was the only place in all my three years that I ever saw the LDS Church
advertised.
BM:
Hmm.
JH:
That would be quite a little story, so you probably wouldn’t want to hear that. I get to
church, but I had to wait a [inaudible] to do it.
[Laughing]
JH:
And I’d only been there for four days, something like that I guess, when that happened.
BM:
Wow. I can’t imagine coming from a place like here and being raised on a farm, and your
family around you and the kinds of things you saw here – even though it was during the
Depression – and then having that kind of experience.
JH:
It was horrible. It was one of the most horrible things. But that was only half of it. I saw
some of the worst of it, right up there in the Nagoya, Japan.
BM:
Mm-hmm.
JH:
After we had gotten settled, we were using Japanese quarters and everything, and
kitchens – their buildings. And so you’d go to chow and go through the chow line with
your mess gear, and you’d pick up your chow and go sit down to a table. And when you
got through they had eight open-top barrels with planes under them outside. Well there
was four of them that you scraped your mess gear out in those barrels, and then on the
end where the boiling water was and everything, there’s where you washed your mess
gear and then took them back to your quarters and hung them up to dry.
Well, we got there (it was just, I guess somewhere around the fifth of September when
we pulled in there), so it was pretty good weather. Well the first time we ate and came out
there to scrape our gear out and wash them, all four of those open-top barrels had little
Japanese kids standing there going through what used to be pig swill. Their clothes hung
on them like there was just nothing but a pole inside. No shoes on their feet and nothing
on their head. And then here would come the adults and run a competition and they were
fighting over the contents of the barrels, what we would scrape off in there. Enough to
turn your stomach, those poor little kids.
Well, we hadn’t been there very long, the next thing you knew the mess sergeant was
complaining he was having to go through too much food, too many groceries. So the
company commander, he decided he better find out what was going on, so he went into
the mess hall, collected all the KPs and the table waiters and the cooks and he really had
a chat with them. Well, they were putting it out where they were supposed to, and putting
on the mess gear as we would come through the line. Well, yeah, but those guys are
loading up their mess gear more than they ever did before. We never seen them load it up
like that in our lives. And those little kids would come over you know, with just about
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�any kind of a plate or something that they could find. And so we would go along and we
would just scrape off half of what we had. When the Army found that out, boy I’ll tell
you, they brought that to a halt in a hurry! So then they put up a big, high chain-link
fence to keep them out. And later on when it started to snow, the first time it snowed it
dropped a foot of snow.
BM:
Oh, gee.
JH:
Here was them kids over there, coming down to those barrels and hanging their little
fingers in those chain-link fences and looking over there so . . .
[End Tape 3:A; begin Tape 3: B]
BM:
[Tape 3: Side] Two. Go ahead.
JH:
There go battle-hardened soldiers standing there with tears running out of their eyes and
dripping down off their chin. So we all of us got in touch – well all of us non-coms we
got a hold of the company commander and asked him to have a talk with him, which we
did. What can be done about it? And he said, “This is military gentlemen. You know as
well as I do,” and he says, “we’re having trouble. There’s enough trouble and expense of
getting food in here to you guys to get the job done. If you’re going to part with food like
that, we just can’t afford it for one thing.” And he says, “You’re never going to fill them
kids up.” Well who is? [And, he said] “That’s the Japanese people’s problem and you’re
not to mix in it.”
Then when I’d go out on my tour of duty, my riot patrol, we’d go by some of those little
grade schools, you know, and see the same thing: them little kids. And the teachers just
come right out and gather them little kids up and push them up to the school house. When
you’d see them, why they’d be out just like our kids, you know, for recess. And it took
almost three weeks before I could stop my squad from beside that fence and get those
teachers to say one word to me. We had a whole bunch of those cock-eyed little bars –
BM:
These are the chocolate bars?
JH:
Yeah, the little chocolate bars. I’d gone over to the kitchen and swiped a couple of
cartons.
BM:
[Laughing]
JH:
I did. [Laughing] I wanted to make friends with them kids, you know. My squad
contained eight men, plus myself. And six of them was back in that squad truck behind
me. I made them stay there, and my Jeep driver – I made him stay in the seat of the Jeep
and I got out and walked over there with my pocket full of them.
This one teacher – she’d seen enough of us and we hadn’t done any problems there, so I
talked to her. I said, “Did you happen to speak English?” I knew a little Japanese, but I
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�you know, I didn’t know all that much. And she said in just as plain of English as you
could get, “Yes, I do.” And so I told her, I said, “I have some of our rations, little candy
bars. They’re Tropical Hershey’s candy bars and they’re made by Hershey company. I’m
sure you know about Hershey’s chocolate bars.” And she said, “Yes, I do.” I said, “Well I
would like to give them little kids one of these bars.” I guess there must have been about
30 little kids that was in that class.
The next thing I knew, here come two more teachers down there. I guess they got to
wondering what was going on, you know. So they come down to see what was going on.
So them three got their heads together and they decided to let me pass out a bar to them
kids. So I got in the back of the Jeep and opened up one of them boxes and took it over
there. And I passed out a little candy bar to each one of them little kids and then I handed
all the teachers one. I ate one myself, to start with so they would know it was alright to
eat. Well after that when I’d go by, “Chocoletto-zho.”
[Laughing]
BM:
Were you able to do that again? Sharing chocolate with them?
JH:
Yeah.
BM:
Oh, that’s nice.
JH:
Yeah. I got my squad all together and I said, “Now it ain’t right that we just go and steal
these chocolates over there.” So we pooled our money and bought them. And that wasn’t
the only school. On that 40 square miles there was about four little grade schools on it
and one high school. But around that high school I never saw anything but a little bit
older Japanese boys that would’ve been maybe 14. But you didn’t see a girl, not a girl. It
was quite a thing.
BM:
And this was in Nagoya, Japan?
JH:
This was Nagoya, Japan. Yeah.
BM:
So you were in the Philippines first, and then in Nagoya –
JH:
Um-hmm.
BM:
And then your job in Nagoya was what again?
JH:
I was a riot patrol sergeant.
BM:
Okay. Which means what?
JH:
Huh?
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�BM:
Which means what? What does it mean? What’s the job?
JH:
Oh. To make sure that there is no riots going on in the area. Because we didn’t know, you
know, how they was going to receive us. For a long time you still didn’t know what was
going on, especially in that area where they’d use those incendiaries and burn everything
to the ground. You know, you’d have to naturally consider the fact that feelings wasn’t
going to be very good about you. So that’s what the deal was. We never did have any
problems.
This boy that I showed you here (my old buddy) – he had a squad, you know. He had a
different district than I had. He ran in to the same thing that I did. He had just an open
heart as I did. Then we had another buddy from Iowa, that the three of us were occupying
the same room together and all three of us were riot patrol sergeants and they had their
district, same as I did. We all had similar kind of situation. The Japanese people could
speak better English than we could.
BM:
Hmm.
JH:
The whole big bunch of them. There were very few of them you ever ran across that
couldn’t speak much English.
BM:
Um-hmm. How many people were from your area that you were over there with? From
Utah –
JH:
From Utah?
BM:
Or even from this northern Utah area?
JH:
Well, from Utah there was seven of us in that one assault battalion. And we spearheaded
every lousy battle that we had in there in Luzon. We was the first ones on [inaudible]
beach head. One of them was from Moab, down here. The other one was from Manila –
they’re both gone. The one from Moab, he wound up – his family is down here in Sandy.
And he passed away here, it’s been not quite a year now since he’s been gone. And the
other one has been gone a year. And those are all I know of from around here anywhere.
BM:
Were they coming from similar backgrounds? When you think of the people you served
with, were they similar kids as far as farm boys or ranch?
JH:
Yeah, quite a bit of them. Most of them were. Most of them in that outfit were. The outfit
we belonged to was a 25th Infantry Division. And their home base is Schofield barracks
within a 15 minute bicycle ride of Pearl Harbor. That division is regular Army. And we
was sworn into the regular Army and they can keep you just as long as they think you’ve
got anything that they need. My commander wanted me to ship over for two more years.
And I told him, “Nope.” I said, “I’ve had enough of the Army. I’ve had enough of the
fighting. I’m going back home over in that little valley that I know of and the surrounding
areas where they grow the most beautiful girls you’ve ever seen. I’m going to find me a
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�mate, and the next thing I’m going to do is I’m going to get me a horse. And get that
sucker so I can climb up in that seat and look in between his ears and get out on a range
where nobody can bother me.”
BM:
[Laughing]
JH:
And he looked at me. He was from Texas, he was from Dallas, Texas and he came off of
a ranch too, the louse. Well, that’s when we was coming home on points. I think I had 58
points.
BM:
Wait. So what does on “points” mean?
JH:
Well, points they give you for your accomplishments in the military anywhere. Chiefly
your battles that you were in, and your citations. I had three Bronze Stars; I went from a
PSE to a Buck Sergeant in 15 minutes. And that was under a heavy battle. I was still
packing a radio.
BM:
Because you were in communications?
JH:
Pardon?
BM:
Because you were trained in communications?
JH:
Yeah, um-hmm. I was still in communications. When we went up to Luzon to battle, I’d
never seen a radio before, but I’d seen machine guns and I’d been around machine guns
in basic training. So they attached me to a machine gun squad. And on this particular time
I’d been with that squad for a couple of months. The squad leader got shot through the
neck (right there, a bullet). Just shot him wide open while I was standing right there
talking to him with my radio in my hand to transfer a message from him to the company
commander. I was standing there trying to talk in it, all of a sudden pop! And something
hot hit me, went down my throat, and all in my eyes – I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hardly
hand on to that radio receiver, and I couldn’t imagine what in the sam-hell had happened.
And Dave, he just hurled. And then I realized what had happened, you know. “Pressure
point, pressure point, pressure point Hansen!” I tried to find it up there, couldn’t find it. I
had to go up on his fatigue jacket and get up here in his armpit and I was lucky enough to
find it. And then I was screaming and hollering for an aid man because he was bleeding
so bad.
Now I was having to hold him and tried to move him over so I could get him to go down
so that sniper wasn’t going to get us again. Here, a brand-new squad of fresh little high
school seniors that had come up to that squad that morning and didn’t know doodlysquat about combat. Nothing. Both guns sitting out in the wide open in a bad place and
we had a banzai attack coming down the hill up there, 500 yards away. Well, anyway I
hollered at those kids and told them to get them guns pulled back and get them up where I
was standing and they just stood there and looked at me. About that time the captain
come on and he said, “Hansen,” (it was a rare occasion you ever heard that man swear,
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�but boy he had some choice words that morning!), “what in the blankety-blank-blank is
going on up there?” And so I told him what had happened. Now he said, “You listen to
me and you make damn sure you listen carefully. Because what I’ve got to tell you,” he
said, “is going to mean that you’re going to have to dig in here. Get that radio,” he said,
“take over that squad immediately, and get them a moving. Even as I speak,” he said,
“you have a battle line under fire promotion from PFC to Sergeant. That’s your squad
from here on out buddy, and you make it work!”
BM:
And did you still have this guy?
JH:
I still had him, trying to get him down. Well at that time the K Company’s aid men heard
me and he come a hoofing up there. One of their first lieutenants (he was only about 20
feet away from me) and he had both hands full with his people. Then he dropped them
and come up to help me get him down. So anyway, got that all took care of. And him and
an aid man took David over and took him down. We were working on a real rocky,
awful, nasty spot. We called it the “iron head.” You couldn’t dig a hole.
And I turned and those kids were still standing there. This one kid I said, “If you don’t
get them guns back up here, you’re going to wish to blankety-blank that you did. You see
them Japs coming down up there? You’re out in the wide open!” And two of them had
came in the night before and it was the only two that he had in his squad at that time. The
other five had come up that morning. This one kid stood there and he said, “Well, I don’t
know who you think you are,” he says, “I had military training in high school, I just
graduated from it,” he says, “I don’t know why you can throw over at me.” And I said,
“Mister, one more word out of you without I see action and you’re going to find out
about it. Get a move on!” And he just stood there, just cocky – I couldn’t let him get
away with it. When you’re under orders when that happens, you take action, you take that
man out. So I pulled my .45 out, jacked her back, calm, walked down, knocked his
helmet off, smacked him right on the side of the face there. And I mean I put him down.
You’re told to kill them, don’t monkey with them. Well, I didn’t want to do that, but I
knew I had to get him out of the way. When I did that I got some action out of the rest of
them!
BM:
You got everybody psyched.
JH:
Yeah. So we got both guns back down where I could get a feel of the fire form, and then I
had to go drag him out along the way, because he was right square where I had to have
that ledge to go along the ground when he crawled up on you. Well I walked up to him
and hoped he didn’t get hit, backed up and got my arms under his boot heels like that and
under my arms, and I just dragged him down to where the rest of them were, his head’s a
bouncing. I thought he was dead and took him down and the K Company’s lieutenant
says, “Is he dead?” And I said, “I don’t know, and I don’t much care. I haven’t got the
time, I’ve got to get these guys set up.” And then I just pulled my canteen out (and that’s
one thing you very rarely had, was enough water). I just dumped that canteen in his face
and started washing him. And pretty soon he started showing some signs of life. The
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�lieutenant, he walked over, took the cork off his and dumped it on him. And between the
two of us we got him a going.
Well, to make a long story a little shorter, he turned out to be the best man we had in the
squad. When I left I recommended him to take my place.
BM:
Oh. That’s great. Well you’re a leader and a teacher with that, you know.
JH:
Well, that’s your job and boy, you better do it because if you don’t, they will.
BM:
Yep. And then you came back?
JH:
Yeah.
BM:
And you got back on your horse? And got married?
JH:
Yep, I did. I did.
BM:
What is the date of that?
JH:
Well we were married on the sixteenth day of August, 1946.
BM:
Oh. Okay.
JH:
I don’t think I’d been home – I don’t think I’d been home much more than a month. And
the funny part of it is I hadn’t ever dated her! I graduated school down there, the same
school she was and one of my best buddies that lived in Ogden come up here and he was
dating her when he come up. And I was dating her best buddy!
[Laughing]
BM:
The old switcheroo there!
JH:
Oh, yeah! [Laughing] Interesting!
BM:
And then you both moved in here.
JH:
Yeah.
BM:
Okay. Well I think at this point, what we ought to do is stop because we’re just about at
the end of this tape. And what I’d like to do is next time we get to talk, I’d like to pick up
from that point.
JH:
Okay.
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�BM:
Okay? And then we also want to interview a little more on, definitely on the veterans and
the World War II. I want to separate those two. But I am going to stop you here just
because we’re about to run out of tape, and I am out of tapes!
[Laughing]
JH:
You’ve got as far as you can go, I don’t want to overrun you!
BM:
You’re fine! You’re fine. This has been wonderful. Is there anything you want to say in
closing, before we sign off for today?
JH:
Well I would have this to say to your students, as I understand it. Listen to your teacher
and listen to your old people. Go and ask them some questions; don’t be afraid to go ask
them questions. When I came home, nobody knew anything about – well, they knew
where I’d been, but I just couldn’t talk about it. I didn’t talk about it until I had half of my
children here. And then the thing that knocked me to, was the simple fact: history wasn’t
being taught. Sports had all of a sudden taken place of history that these people nowadays
need to know about. Because I am just scared to death their going to take a good look at
her. And if you don’t know anything about it, you’re the first one’s to run. So I would say
to them, learn all you can from your elders and your teachers; if they’re willing to teach
you, listen to them. Then you’ll be a whole lot better off, and so will the nation.
BM:
Okay.
JH:
I guess that’s it.
BM:
Well thank you very much. This has been delightful. To be continued.
JH:
To be continued? Okay!
[Stop recording]
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�
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Transcription equipment: Power Player Transcription Software: Executive Communication Systems
Date Digital
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2013-01-17
Dublin Core
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Title
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John K. Hansen interview, 12 March 2009, and transcription
Description
An account of the resource
Mr. Hansen talks about growing up in Garden City, Utah, and his earliest memories of Logan Canyon, three years in the South Pacific during World War II, 18 years in highway construction with W.W. Clyde and Company over in Springville, Utah, returning to Garden City to take over family sheep ranch.
Creator
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Hansen, John K., 1924-
Contributor
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Middleton, Barbara
Subject
The topic of the resource
Hansen, John K., 1924---Interviews
Hansen, John K., 1924---Family
Garden City (Utah)--History
Sheep ranchers--Utah--Garden City
Sheep--Utah--History
Sheepherding--Utah--Rich County
Sheepherding--Utah--Logan Canyon
Ranching--Utah--Garden City--History
Ranch life--Utah--Garden City
Grazing--Utah--Logan Canyon
Range management--Utah--Logan Canyon
Cattle herding--Utah
Cattle herding--Wyoming
Ranchers--Utah--Biography
Roads--Utah--Logan Canyon--Maintenance and repair
Fishing--Utah--Logan Canyon
World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives
Medium
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Oral history
Interviews
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Bear Lake (Utah and Idaho)
Cache National Forest (Utah and Idaho)
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Tony Grove (Utah)
Plain City (Utah)
Randolf (Utah)
Woodruff (Utah)
Temple Fork (Utah)
White Pine Lake (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Garden City (Utah)
Rich County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-1949
1950-1959
1960-1969
1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999
20th century
2000-2009
21st century
Language
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eng
Source
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 3 Fd. 3
Is Referenced By
A related resource that references, cites, or otherwise points to the described resource.
Inventory for the Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection can be found at: <a href="http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php">http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php</a>
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of the USU Fife Folklore Archives Curator, phone (435) 797-3493
Is Part Of
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Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection
Type
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Sound
Format
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audio/mp3
Identifier
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FolkColl42bx2fd3JohnKHansen
Date Created
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12 March 2009
Date Modified
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2009-03-29
Is Version Of
A related resource of which the described resource is a version, edition, or adaptation. Changes in version imply substantive changes in content rather than differences in format.
Logan Canyon Reflections
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PDF Text
Text
Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
Establishing a Forest Reserve
Logan Canyon is one of the most scenic areas of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. It
offers an abundance of recreational opportunities, including skiing, hiking, kayaking, and camping.
However, it was not always viewed as a recreational resource.
During the late 19th century, huge timber harvests and overgrazing led to the deterioration of
Logan Canyon. Irrigation and drinking water in Cache Valley became so polluted that residents
debated whether to petition President Theodore Roosevelt to intervene to preserve Logan Canyon and
its river. At the urging of several concerned citizens, the Cache County Commission called for a public
meeting to discuss the issue. On February 15, 1902, citizens from throughout the county gathered and
after much debate, voted almost unanimously in favor of petitioning the president.
President Roosevelt sent a grazing expert named Albert F. Potter to survey the canyon. Potter
estimated that around 150,000 sheep grazed in the Utah portion of the Bear River Mountains in 1901.
He concluded that the canyon had indeed been overgrazed and the trees over-harvested. So in May
1903, President Roosevelt signed a proclamation establishing the Logan Forest Reserve. The
designation covered 107,540 acres in and around Logan Canyon.
During his visit to Salt Lake City in spring of 1903, Roosevelt made a formal address to the
citizens of Utah. He said “do not let the mountain forests be devastated by the men who overgraze
them, destroy them for the sake of three years' use and then go somewhere else, and leave so much
diminished the heritage of those who remain permanently on the land.”
The General Land Office appointed John Fell Squires, a 56-year-old barber from Logan, to
serve as Forest Supervisor. James Leatham, a farmer and school teacher from Wellsville, became the
first ranger. These two men comprised the entire forest management team for the new reserve. They
fought the occasional forest fire and introduced a permit system for grazing. When the system was first
introduced, Squires and Leatham issued 17 permits for a total of 33,950 sheep. This is less than a
quarter of the number of sheep that grazed there in 1901.
Logan Canyon slowly returned to a state of ecological health. Today, the canyon continues to
be used and managed for multiple purposes, including recreation, power production, and forest
products. As stated by Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the Forest Service, National Forests should
“provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run.”
Sources:
U.S. Forest Service Website: http://www.fs.fed.us.
Sweeney, Michael S. Last Unspoiled Place: Utah's Logan Canyon. National Geographic Society, 2008.
Johnson, Michael W. “Whiskey or Water: A Brief History of the Cache National Forest.” Utah
Historical Quarterly. 73.4 (Fall 2005).
�
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/315">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/315</a>
Date Digital
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2012-05-24
Dublin Core
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Title
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Establishing a Forest Reserve
Description
An account of the resource
Disgusted with the deterioration of Logan Canyon, Logan's citizens came together and a Forest Reserve was born. Voiced by Lisa Thompson. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History &
Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stokes Nature Center
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Thompson, Lisa
Subject
The topic of the resource
Logan Forest Reserve (Utah)--History
Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest--History
Land use--Utah--Logan Canyon
Range management--Utah--Logan Canyon
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
podcasts
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1880-1889
19th century
1900-1909
20th century
Language
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eng
Rights
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
Type
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Sound
Format
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audio/mp3
Identifier
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Podcast2EstablishingAForestReserve
Date Created
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Jan. 3, 2011
Date Modified
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2011-01-03
Is Version Of
A related resource of which the described resource is a version, edition, or adaptation. Changes in version imply substantive changes in content rather than differences in format.
Logan Canyon Reflections
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PDF Text
Text
Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
Temple Sawmill
In Spring 1877, Brigham Young, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, decided to build a temple in Cache Valley. The locals looked to the canyons to the east for the
resources they needed to complete this huge task. By summer of the same year, Thomas X. Smith and
C. O. Card located an appropriate site in Logan Canyon, a side-canyon then called Maughan's Fork.
This was a very competitive time for lumber. Nearby, the Utah & Northern Railroad was being
constructed, and Coe and Carter, a company that supplied railroad ties, had scouts looking to the
mountains of northern Utah to supply the wood they would need. Upon receiving news of this, the
locals took immediate action to secure the stands of trees they had chosen for the temple. Card sent out
a team to begin construction of the new sawmill, and not a moment too soon. Historian Marion
Everton wrote, “When the Coe and Carter outfit arrived some forty-eight hours later they found the
first logs laid out for a big sawmill and men busily engaged in constructing shelters, but not too busy to
tell visitors that they intended to continue the occupation of Maughan's Fork with the exclusion of any
and all other outfits.”
Work progressed quickly, and on November 4, 1877, the mill sawed its first board. In 1878, the
side-canyon where the sawmill was located began to be called by an appropriate name: Temple Fork.
The sawmill proved to be overly capable, producing more wood than was needed for the new
temple. Contracts were made with the Utah & Northern to cut the extra wood into railroad ties, and,
ironically, the project that once rivaled the temple became a project that helped fund its construction.
The sawmill operated for 9 years, producing more than 2.5 million board-feet of lumber, 21,000
railroad ties, and many other wood products. It was closed down in 1884 and put up for sale, but there
were no buyers. In 1886, the sawmill met its end when it mysteriously burned down. Two sets of
men's footprints in the snow led to and from the site, which led people to suspect arson. However, no
clues indicating who set the fire, or why, were ever found.
Sources:
Simmonds, A. J. In God’s Lap: Cache Valley history as told in the newspaper columns of A. J.
Simmonds, A Herald Journal Book. Herald Journal, 2004.
Sweeney, Michael S. Last Unspoiled Place: Utah's Logan Canyon. National Geographic Society, 2008.
�
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/312">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/312</a>
Date Digital
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2012-05-24
Dublin Core
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Title
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Temple Sawmill
Description
An account of the resource
The sawmill that provided lumber for Cache Valley's LDS temple survived fierce competition, had a productive life, and then met its mysterious end. Voiced by Elaine Thatcher. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History & Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
Creator
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Stokes Nature Center
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Thatcher, Elaine
Subject
The topic of the resource
Temple Fork Sawmill (Logan Canyon, Utah)--History
Temple Fork (Logan Canyon, Utah)--History--19th century
Sawmills--Utah--Logan Canyon--History--19th century
Medium
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podcasts
Spatial Coverage
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Temple Fork (Utah)
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1870-1879
1880-1889
19th century
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
Type
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Sound
Format
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audio/mp3
Identifier
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Podcast9TempleSawmill
Date Created
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Feb. 22, 2011
Date Modified
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2011-02-22
Is Version Of
A related resource of which the described resource is a version, edition, or adaptation. Changes in version imply substantive changes in content rather than differences in format.
Logan Canyon Reflections
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1802557b4952241c98aaf3d883f5d16d
PDF Text
Text
Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
A Growing National Forest
The protected area that includes Logan Canyon has grown and changed names many times. In
1903, the Logan Forest Reserve was created by presidential proclamation and covered 107,540 acres.
It and other forest reserves across the nation were under the jurisdiction of the Interior Department's
General Land Office.
Two years after the Logan Forest Reserve was established, Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the Bureau
of Forestry at the Department of Agriculture, transferred all forest reserves to his agency and then
renamed it the Forest Service. While in office, Pinchot brought millions of acres of land under forest
reserve status. The reserve system across the country tripled from 56 million acres in 1905 to 172
million acres in 1910. This is roughly twice the size of the state of Utah. At this time, the Logan
Forest Reserve was expanded and renamed the Bear River Forest Reserve. It now included most of the
Bear River Mountains up to Soda Springs, Idaho.
William Weld Clark, Forest Supervisor for a short time, reported in 1907 the public opinion of
Rich County residents to the growth of the protected forest region. “The attitude of the users and
neighbors of this Forest is on the whole very friendly and favorable. There are still plenty of kickers
who are to be found in all communities and are constitutionally opposed to any regulation by which
they are required to ask for something that they have been in the habit of obtaining without consulting
anyone.”
Pinchot didn’t like the term “forest reserve.” He thought it gave the impression that the forests
were set aside and not meant to be used. But in fact, forest reserves have always been meant to have
multiple uses, from grazing and timber harvest in moderation to recreational opportunities, as well as
protecting the forests for future generations. To emphasize the idea of utility, Pinchot changed “forest
reserves” to “national forests.” Thus, the Bear River Forest Reserve became the Bear River National
Forest.
In 1908, the Bear River National Forest was split. A portion of the Idaho lands were transferred
to the Pocatello National Forest, and the remaining area was renamed the Cache National Forest. Over
the years, the Cache National Forest transformed many times, as lands were added and subtracted.
Notably, in 1915 the Pocatello National Forest was eliminated, and its lands transferred to the Cache
National Forest.
Then in 1973, in an effort to consolidate management, Cache National Forest merged with
neighboring Wasatch National Forest. Idaho lands were transferred to the Caribou National Forest.
The result was the Wasatch-Cache National Forest.
The most recent change occurred in August, 2007. The Uinta National Forest was merged with
the Wasatch-Cache to create the current Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. The forest covers
nearly 2.1 million acres, or nearly 4% of Utah’s total area and is one of the most frequently visited
national forests in the nation.
References:
U.S. Forest Service Website: http://www.fs.fed.us.
Sweeney, Michael S. Last Unspoiled Place: Utah's Logan Canyon. National Geographic Society, 2008.
Johnson, Michael W. “Whiskey or Water: A Brief History of the Cache National Forest.” Utah
Historical Quarterly. 73.4 (Fall 2005).
�Forest History Society website: http://www.foresthistory.org.
Wilson, Richa. “On Horseback and by Highway: Administrative Facilities of the Wasatch-Cache
National Forest 1902-1960.” Historic Context Statement and Evaluations, Forest Service Report No.
WS-05-731. U.S. Forest Service, 2005.
�
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/309">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/309</a>
Date Digital
Record the date the item was digitized.
2012-05-24
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Growing national forest
Description
An account of the resource
Logan Canyon is part of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, a nationally protected area which has grown and changed many times over the years. Voiced by Lisa Thompson. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History & Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stokes Nature Center
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Thompson, Lisa
Subject
The topic of the resource
Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest--History
Land use--Utah--Logan Canyon
Range management--Utah--Logan Canyon
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
podcasts
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest (Utah)
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1900-1909
1910-1919
1920-1929
1930-1939
1940-1949
1950-1959
1960-1969
1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999
20th century
2000-2009
21st century
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
Type
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Sound
Format
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audio/mp3
Identifier
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Podcast3AGrowingNationalForest
Date Created
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Jan. 10, 2011
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2011-01-10
Is Version Of
A related resource of which the described resource is a version, edition, or adaptation. Changes in version imply substantive changes in content rather than differences in format.
Logan Canyon Reflections
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PDF Text
Text
Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
Stokes Nature Center's Beginnings
Stokes Nature Center operates out of a 3,000 square-foot lodge that sits on U.S. Forest Service
land, under a lease agreement with the Forest Service. It was constructed in 1924 by members of the
American Legion. After the Legion built a new facility in Logan in the late 1980s, they donated the
lodge to the Trapper Trails Council of the Boy Scouts. Finding that it didn't fit their needs, the Boy
Scouts left it vacant.
Several community members in Logan's First Presbyterian Church and the Bridgerland
Audubon Society, seeing a need for nature education in Cache Valley, began to develop the idea of
creating a nature center out of the old abandoned building. In August 1996, the church took ownership
of the building. Together, the Presbyterian Church and Bridgerland Audubon designated a board to
establish a separate organization to develop a not-for-profit nature center.
After being abandoned for over two years, the building was in poor shape. Vandals had kicked
holes in the walls, broken nearly every pane of glass, and built fires on the tile floors. Nature had
begun to reclaim the space, taking its own toll on the building. Trees grew into the sides of the roof,
holes in the ceiling let in the weather, and mice built their nests in the cozy interior. However, the
location was just right: only a short drive from Logan, but far enough into the canyon to bring people
out into nature. And it was free!
There were challenges, but there was an even greater amount of determination on the part of
many people who believed the community badly needed a center for nature education. A crew of over
200 volunteers worked for more than a year renovating the building to provide a safe and welcoming
place for learning. Now, all it needed was a name.
Allen and Alice Stokes loved nature and were both active members of the community. Allen
was a naturalist and professor at Utah State University, and Alice volunteered her time for many causes.
The nature center founders asked Allen and Alice if they could use their name. Reluctantly, the Stokes
gave permission, but Allen asked that Alice’s name be put first. He died before the center opened, and
Alice switched the names so that his was first. On November 1, 1997, the Allen and Alice Stokes
Nature Center was dedicated.
In July 2001, after three and a half successful years of programming, the title to the building
was turned over to Stokes Nature Center. Since then, the center has operated as an independent nonprofit organization with a mission to provide opportunities for people of all ages to explore, learn
about, and develop appreciation and stewardship for our natural world.
Sources:
Stokes Nature Center website: http://www.logannature.org.
Dixon, Bryan. The Allen and Alice Stokes Nature Center in Logan Canyon: The Beginnings.
Field Notes from the Allen and Alice Stokes Nature Center. 1.1 (Feb. 1998).
Strand, Holly. “The Stokes Legacy.” Wild About Utah. Available on the Wild About Utah website:
http://www.bridgerlandaudubon.org/wildaboututah.
�
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/306">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/306</a>
Date Digital
Record the date the item was digitized.
2012-05-24
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Stokes Nature Center's beginnings
Description
An account of the resource
Stokes Nature Center, the main source of nature education in Cache Valley for over 13 years, began with a group of dedicated volunteers and an old abandoned building. Voiced by Val Grant. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History & Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
Creator
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Stokes Nature Center
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Grant, Val
Subject
The topic of the resource
Stokes Nature Center--History
Nature centers--Utah--Logan Canyon--History
Medium
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podcasts
Spatial Coverage
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Stokes Nature Center (Utah)
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1920-1929
1930-1939
1940-1949
1950-1959
1960-1969
1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999
20th century
2000-2009
21st century
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
Type
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Sound
Format
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audio/mp3
Identifier
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Podcast4StokesNatureCenter
Date Created
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Jan. 18, 2011
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2011-01-18
Is Version Of
A related resource of which the described resource is a version, edition, or adaptation. Changes in version imply substantive changes in content rather than differences in format.
Logan Canyon Reflections
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PDF Text
Text
Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
Witch's Castle
Located about 900 feet from the canyon floor, the Wind Caves represent thousands of years of
weathering by wind and water. The result is a beautiful cave-like formation with three delicate arches.
This limestone formation bears the local name “The Witch's Castle.” The resident witch is
known as Hecate, the name of an ancient Greek goddess associated with witchcraft and the underworld.
According to legend, if you venture into Spring Hollow, just across the highway, and chant the name of
the witch, she will appear. Sometimes she appears with her son, and sometimes with her dogs. She
often appears with long white hair, wearing a long pale dress. It is said that she has the ability to kill
car engines.
Some believe the legend dates back to the 1920s when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints built a girls' lodge at a nearby location. Or it could have come about simply as a result of
imagination and inspiration spurred by the unique natural architecture.
Whatever the origin, the legend has been preserved in the many so-called documented sightings
of Hecate over the years. In one sighting, a man named Clyde was driving his pickup through Logan
Canyon. His truck unexpectedly died near Third Dam, and there was a woman standing in the middle
of the road. The woman was wearing a long gray coat. Clyde frantically tried to restart the engine as
the woman walked around the truck, looking into the window. When she walked behind the truck, it
started up again, and Clyde drove off, watching in his rear-view mirror as the woman slowly followed
him. Only as he exited the canyon did she disappear.
If you are up there at night, you may hear Hecate's dogs howl. The sound is real. As the night
canyon wind blows through the caves, it could easily be mistaken for the howling of a supernatural dog
with a witch companion.
Sources:
Sweeney, Michael S. Last Unspoiled Place: Utah's Logan Canyon. National Geographic Society, 2008.
Logan Canyon National Scenic Byway website: http://www.logancanyon.com.
�
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/303">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/303</a>
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2012-05-24
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Witch's castle
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The Wind Caves, a beautiful natural formation in Logan Canyon, has inspired stories of a supernatural resident, a witch named Hecate. Voiced by David Sidwell. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History & Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
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Stokes Nature Center
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Sidwell, David
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Wind Caves (Utah)
Wind Caves (Utah)--Folklore
Legends--Utah--Logan Canyon
Folklore--Utah--Logan Canyon
Hecate (Greek deity)
Medium
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podcasts
Spatial Coverage
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Wind Caves (Utah)
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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2010-2019
21st century
Language
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eng
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
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Podcast6WitchsCastle
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Jan. 31, 2011
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2011-01-31
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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PDF Text
Text
Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
Road to Recreation
When the Mormon pioneers were first settling in Cache Valley, recreation was very limited.
Not only did the pioneers have little time to devote to recreation, they had fewer options. The canyon
road at this time was not in the best shape, and recreating far up the canyon was difficult. Logan
Canyon was used primarily for the resources it provided. Most of the people who ventured into the
canyon were loggers, herders, hunters, or explorers.
On July 4, 1873, an LDS stake led by Apostle Brigham Young Jr. spent a day of rest and
recreation in the canyon. This may have been the first purely recreational use of the canyon by the
pioneers. The first published account of recreation in Logan Canyon showed up in the Ogden Standard
on August 17, 1888. The article stated: “Rev. Samuel Unsworth, rector of the Church of the Good
Shepherd in this city, returned yesterday, in company with his brother, from a pleasure trip to Logan
Canyon. Their appearance proves that the few days resticating have been of great physical benefit to
them.”
After this, the canyon began to receive increasing mention in the local press as a place for
recreation. It is likely at this time a group of Logan’s leading citizens began to make frequent trips to a
spot about six miles up Tony Grove Creek. The flowery meadow sprinkled with trees made an idyllic
setting for fishing and camping.
To those who used the canyon for work only, the sight of people camping just for fun invoked
envy. They began referring the area condescendingly as “Tony Grove.” The word “tony” was slang for
cultured or high-brow. This name was repeated so often, that it stuck…and grew to include the creek
and eventually, the lake that feeds the creek. Today, Tony Grove is one of the most popular hiking and
camping locations in Logan Canyon.
Sources:
Simmonds, A. J. “A Mountain Grove for the 'Tony Set.'” In God’s Lap: Cache Valley history as told in
the newspaper columns of A. J. Simmonds, A Herald Journal Book. Herald Journal, 2004.
Sweeney, Michael S. Last Unspoiled Place: Utah's Logan Canyon. National Geographic Society, 2008.
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/300">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/300</a>
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Digitized by: Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library
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2012-05-24
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Title
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Road to recreation
Description
An account of the resource
In the 1870s, Logan Canyon began to be used for recreation, a novel idea that led to the naming of one of the most well-known areas in the canyon, Tony Grove. Voiced by Elaine Thatcher. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History & Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
Creator
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Stokes Nature Center
Contributor
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Thatcher, Elaine
Subject
The topic of the resource
Recreation--Utah--Logan Canyon--History
Recreation--Utah--Tony Grove--History
Land use--Utah--Logan Canyon--History
Tony Grove (Utah)--Name
Tony Grove Lake (Utah)--Name
Tony Grove Creek (Utah)--Name
Medium
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podcasts
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Tony Grove (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
2010-2019
21st century
Language
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eng
Rights
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
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Sound
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audio/mp3
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Podcast11RoadToRecreation
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March 8, 2011
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2011-03-08
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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PDF Text
Text
Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
Bear Lake Monster
Like Loch Ness and many other lakes around the world, Bear Lake keeps a monster-sized secret
in its depths. The legend seems to have been born in 1868 when local resident Joseph Rich reported
sightings of “a strange serpent creature.” Rich was a correspondent for the Evening Deseret News in
Salt Lake City, where his articles and letters about the monster were first published.
Between 1868 and 1871, several more sightings of the beast were reported. Four campers
claimed that a huge alligator-like animal emerged from the water and destroyed their camp. A local
from Paris, Idaho, named Thomas Sleight reported seeing a huge animal three miles out on the lake
swimming south with incredible speed. Aquilla Nebeker, a resident of South Eden, saw the monster
gobbling his flock of sheep along with several rolls of barbed wire.
With each sighting, however, the description of the monster changed dramatically. The Bear
Lake monster has been reported to be as little as 6 and as much as 90 feet long. It had a horse-like head
and then a snake-like head. Its body has been alternately brown, green, shiny, scaly, or hairy. Through
the years, the beast was seen rising out of the water, floating calmly, swimming at great speed, and even
walking on the shore.
Interestingly, several eyewitness accounts came from men and women greatly respected within
the community. This helped to convince people that there really must be some kind of creature
inhabiting the lake. Panic rose, and local shop owners saw an increase in gun sales from 1868 to 1870.
At different points of time, plots were hatched to capture the beast. A man named Phineas Cook crafted
a large fishing hook, attached it to a log float, baited it with sheep meat, and hoped to catch the monster
like a huge fish. Someone else suggested running the entire lake through a strainer, but no one knew
where to find one of sufficient size.
Several years later, Joseph Rich claimed his Bear Lake monster story was a hoax that he
invented to help attract tourists to the lake. However, many witnesses stood by their accounts. While
the overall fervor about the monster has abated, the legend continues, and the locals still have fun with
the story, making boats and parade floats in the image of the beast.
Take a look at the beautiful Caribbean-blue waters of the Bear Lake. Do you think something
lurks below the surface?
Sources:
Bagley, Pat. “'Monsterologist' doesn't dismiss the Bear Lake Monster.” Salt Lake Tribune 30 Jul. 2006.
Law, Dorothy C. “Bear Lake's monster tales live in history.” The Herald Journal 26 May 1985.
Portraits in Time: Logan Canyon, a Historical Guide. Published by Bridgerland Travel Region and the
United States Forest Service Logan Ranger District.
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2012-05-24
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Title
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Bear Lake Monster
Description
An account of the resource
Reported sightings of a strange creature in Bear Lake during the 1860s grew into a monster-sized legend. Voiced by David Sidwell. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History and Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stokes Nature Center
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sidwell, David
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bear Lake Monster
Monsters--Bear Lake (Utah and Idaho)--History
Bear Lake (Utah and Idaho)--Folklore
Medium
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podcasts
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Bear Lake (Utah and Idaho)
Bear Lake County (Idaho)
Rich County (Utah)
Idaho
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1860-1869
1870-1879
19th century
Language
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eng
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
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Sound
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audio/mp3
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Podcast15BearLakeMonster
Date Created
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April 4, 2011
Date Modified
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2011-04-04
Is Version Of
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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PDF Text
Text
Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
Old Ephraim
One of the most famous residents of Logan Canyon was a grizzly bear named Old Ephraim.
Old Ephraim was big even by grizzly bear standards. He was said to stand 9 feet 11 inches tall and
weigh approximately 1,100 pounds. However, since grizzlies normally range from 225 to 670 pounds,
this estimate is quite possibly an exaggeration used to make a good story even better. It is safe to say,
though, that Old Ephraim was intimidatingly large.
Like other bears, Old Ephraim was considered a nuisance by the sheep herders grazing their
flocks in the canyon because he had a tendency to eat their sheep. Many Logan Canyon bears were
hunted and killed by sheep herders trying to protect their flocks. One particular sheep herder named
Frank Clark was no exception. Beginning in 1911, Frank took his sheep into Logan Canyon every
summer. In the 45 summers he grazed his flock in the canyon, there were only two summers that he
failed to kill at least one bear.
In 1913, Old Ephraim began to visit Frank's flock. For 10 summers after that, he continued to
eat Frank's sheep. And for 10 summers, Frank used traps and guns, attempting and failing to rid
himself of the clever and unwelcome visitor. When Frank found Old Ephraim's wallow, a muddy
shallow pool of water where the bear spent time, he thought victory was close. He set up a bear trap in
the wallow. But Old Ephraim was very clever and picked up the trap without setting it off, dropping it
nearby before getting into his pool. Frank tried more traps in the following years with the same result.
The conflict between Frank and Old Ephraim continued until 1923 when the grizzly created a
new wallow. Frank decided to try his old trick at the new location. The next night, Old Ephraim fell
into the trap. One mile downstream, Frank awoke to, in his words, “an awful roar and scream” of
“mingled pain and misery.” Frank grabbed his rifle and ran through the dark to the wallow. There, he
saw Old Ephraim lunging about on his hind feet. Ephraim's right front foot was caught in the trap and
wrapped with 14 feet of chain. Still on his hind feet, the bear began to walk up the bank towards Frank.
Terrified, Frank fired his rifle, hitting Ephraim with several shots. The giant bear fell dead. Frank
described the death of Old Ephraim in these words. “I sat down and watched his spirit depart from that
great body, and it seemed to take a long time, but at last he raised his head just a mite, gasped and was
still.”
Frank then ran off to find his nearest neighboring herdsman in the canyon, and when he
returned, they skinned the bear and burned the carcass. Then, Frank buried the remains at this site now
called Ephraim's Grave. Later on, a Boy Scout troop went to the grave site and took the 15 inch skull.
They sent it to the Smithsonian, who confirmed that it had belonged to a grizzly bear. In 1978, the
skull came back to Logan on a long-term loan from the Smithsonian. It now resides on display in the
basement of the Merrill-Cazier Library at Utah State University.
Only later did people realize that Old Ephraim was Utah's last grizzly bear. When telling his
story afterwards, Frank Clark expressed regret over killing the bear. Today, Old Ephaim's grave stands
as a tribute to the grizzly bears that once roamed Logan Canyon.
Sources:
Sweeney, Michael S. Last Unspoiled Place: Utah's Logan Canyon. National Geographic Society, 2008.
Recorded account of the killing of Old Ephraim written by Frank Clark at the request of the Forest
Service. Can be accessed on Utah State University's Merrill-Cazier Library website:
http://digital.lib.usu.edu/u?/Ephraim,78.
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/294">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/294</a>
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2012-05-24
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Title
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Old Ephraim
Description
An account of the resource
The legendary conflict between sheepherder Frank Clark and Old Ephraim the giant grizzly bear is one of the most widely-told stories of Logan Canyon. Voiced by David Sidwell. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History and Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
Creator
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Stokes Nature Center
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sidwell, David
Subject
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Old Ephraim (Bear)
Grizzly bear hunting--Utah--Logan Canyon
Clark, Frank, 1879-1960
Grizzly bear--Utah--Logan Canyon--Folklore
Medium
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podcasts
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1910-1919
1920-1929
1930-1939
1940-1949
1950-1959
1960-1969
1970-1979
20th century
Language
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eng
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
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audio/mp3
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Podcast8OldEphraim
Date Created
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Feb. 14, 2011
Date Modified
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2011-02-14
Is Version Of
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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PDF Text
Text
Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
St. Anne's Ghost
Everyone loves a ghost story. Young people in Logan grow up hearing stories about the
ghost at “the Nunnery,” a story inspired by St. Anne's Retreat, in Preston Hollow.
In the early 1900s, Hezekiah Eastman Hatch, a prominent Logan businessman, built a
cabin at the location. His descendants expanded his cabin into a recreation camp for the family.
Over time, the camp grew to include 21 structures: two main lodges, six smaller cabins, a
playhouse, and several other buildings. Outside, there is a fire pit, fountain, bridge, and
swimming pool.
In the 1950s, the property was offered to and accepted by the Catholic Church. It became
a summer retreat for nuns and was renamed St. Anne's Retreat. At some point after this, the
ghost legend was born.
There are several versions of the legend. According to one, a nun staying at St. Anne's
Retreat became pregnant. To keep the birth a secret, the mother drowned her baby in the
swimming pool. Some say that you can hear the voice of a child coming from near the pool.
Others claim that the ghost of a nun haunts the retreat, eerily emerging from the forest.
Sometime she is accompanied by two white Doberman Pinschers with blood-red eyes. Others
have reported seeing a woman dressed in black who appears out of nowhere on the highway near
the retreat. And beware if you are a first born son, for if you see St. Anne's Ghost, your own
death is imminent!
Unfortunately, vandals visited the retreat from time to time, causing a great deal of
damage. As the ghost stories circulated, vandalism increased. The nuns became alarmed and
eventually no longer wished to stay at the retreat. So the Catholic Church sold the property.
Visitors, please note that it is private property. Please be respectful.
Sources:
Browning, Diane. “A Haunted Retreat.” The Herald Journal 26 Oct. 1986.
Moore, Carrie A. “Legends surround St. Ann's Retreat.” Deseret News 22 Jul. 2006.
�
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/291">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/291</a>
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Digitized by: Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library
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2012-05-24
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Title
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St. Anne's Ghost
Description
An account of the resource
According to local legend, a mysterious presence haunts St. Anne's Retreat in Logan Canyon. Voiced by David Sidwell. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History and Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
Creator
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Stokes Nature Center
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sidwell, David
Subject
The topic of the resource
Saint Anne's Retreat (Logan Canyon, Utah)--Folklore
Medium
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podcasts
Spatial Coverage
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Saint Anne's Retreat (Utah)
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
2010-2019
21st century
Language
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eng
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
Type
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Sound
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audio/mp3
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Podcast10StAnnesGhost
Date Created
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March 1, 2011
Date Modified
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2011-03-01
Is Version Of
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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PDF Text
Text
Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
Too Many Sheep
After 1880, sheep overtook cows as the primary livestock of Cache Valley. Herders took their
flocks to the West Desert for winter grazing, to irrigated farms in the valley for spring lambing, and to
the mountains for summer grazing. Between 1880 and 1900, the sheep population of Cache Valley
rose dramatically to 300,000, and Logan Canyon became congested with sheep. As the herds moved,
they kicked up so much dust that residents of the valley several miles to the west could see huge clouds
of it rising from the mountains.
During the summer months, pastures were effectively stripped of vegetation. After consuming
all the plants, sheep would pack the bare soil down with their hooves as they moved. Soil compaction
and the area’s low level of precipitation guaranteed that nothing could grow back. Plant cover allows
snowmelt to sink into the soil and replenish the groundwater supply. It also lets the spring runoff
trickle down gradually throughout the summer. Without plant cover, snowmelt plunged straight down
the mountain all at once leaving the rivers and valleys below dry by late summer. The plunging waters
also took the unanchored soil downstream. In spring, muddy water filled with animal waste and dead
sheep flowed out of the canyon, polluting the valley's irrigation and drinking water.
Mayor Moroni Price of Smithfield was disgusted by the dead sheep and other animals he had
seen in the river. He said at a meeting of concerned citizens that he had just about reached a decision to
“drink whiskey from now on.” This was a shocking statement coming from a Mormon community
leader, for whom drinking was close to taboo. The situation prompted citizens to approach the federal
government about creating a Forest Reserve to protect the watershed.
After the Forest Reserve was created, grazing was limited by permits, and the canyon’s
environmental health was greatly improved.
Sources:
Sweeney, Michael S. Last Unspoiled Place: Utah's Logan Canyon. National Geographic Society, 2008.
Johnson, Michael W. “Whiskey or Water: A Brief History of the Cache National Forest.” Utah
Historical Quarterly. 73.4 (Fall 2005).
U.S. Forest Service website: http://www.fs.fed.us/aboutus.
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/288">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/288</a>
Date Digital
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2012-06-14
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Title
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Too Many Sheep
Description
An account of the resource
Sheep grazing during the late 1800s led to the deterioration of Logan Canyon. Voiced by Elaine Thatcher. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History and Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stokes Nature Center
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Thatcher, Elaine
Subject
The topic of the resource
Grazing--Environmental aspects--Utah--Logan Canyon
Sheep--Cache Valley (Utah and Idaho)--History--19th century
Range management--Utah--Logan Canyon--History
Rangelands--Utah--Logan Canyon
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
podcasts
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Cache Valley (Utah and Idaho)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1880-1889
19th century
1900-1909
20th century
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
Type
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Sound
Format
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audio/mp3
Identifier
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Podcast1TooManySheep
Date Created
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Dec. 14, 2010
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2010-12-14
Is Version Of
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
Beaver Mountain Ski Area
Harold Seeholzer loved the outdoors, snow, and skiing. He and his wife Luella wanted to create
a place for family recreation during the winter, so in the late 1930s, Harold and other local ski fanatics
installed the first lift at Beaver Mountain, a single rope tow. There was no road to Beaver Mountain, so
skiers parked on the highway and hiked about a mile to get there. Because of this inaccessibility,
operations were moved to the Sinks area a few miles farther up the canyon, but this area had its own
problems, and little potential for growth. So in 1945, ski operations at the Sinks shut down.
Beaver Mountain still had great potential, despite its problems. Thanks to the efforts of county
commissioner El Ray Robinson and others, money was obtained to make the site accessible, and a road
and parking lot were built. Further developments came to Beaver Mountain with the help of pledges
made by the Mt. Logan Ski Club, the Forest Service, Cache Chamber of Commerce, and Harold and
Luella Seeholzer. In 1949, a new tow rope was added, and in 1950, a 2,700 foot T-bar was installed.
In 1961, Harold and Luella along with their four children officially formed a corporation. They
continued to improve the resort, adding more lifts and buildings. Although the resort was a great and
expanding success, one dream remained unfulfilled. From the beginning of his skiing career, Harold
Seeholzer dreamed of having a chair lift that went from the base of Beaver Mountain all the way to the
top. Harold died in 1968 without seeing this dream realized. However, his family continued to pursue
the idea, and in 1970, a 4,600 foot double chair lift was installed at Beaver Mountain. Appropriately, it
was named “Harry's Dream.”
In 1997, the ski resort came under the care of Harold’s son Ted, his wife Marge, and their
children: daughter Annette and her husband Jeff West, and son Travis and his wife Kristy Seeholzer.
Each family member does their part to keep the place running. From plowing and grooming the snow
to selling tickets and working in the shop, the Seeholzer family operates the resort. Marge manages the
ticket office. Jeff and Travis help out wherever needed. Ted oversees the entire operation. Company
meetings consist of six family members. And the operation continues to grow.
After 1997, the Seeholzers added a new maintenance building and a beautiful lodge addition to
accommodate the increasing number of skiers. They converted Harry's Dream into a triple lift, and in
2003, they put in a new lift, which added 400 acres to the resort. They named it Marge's Triple Lift. In
2009, they added a conveyor lift, similar to a moving sidewalk, which has been helpful in teaching new
skiers. The Seeholzers have future projects already in mind, and continue to dedicate themselves to
making Beaver Mountain Ski Area grow and prosper.
In the winter months, an average of 740 skiers per day enjoy the slopes of Beaver Mountain.
Today, Beaver Mountain Ski Area encompasses 1,100 acres and is the oldest family-run ski operation
in the country.
Sources:
Ted & Marge Seeholzer.
Sweeney, Michael S. Last Unspoiled Place: Utah's Logan Canyon. National Geographic Society, 2008.
Beaver Mountain Ski Area website: http://www.skithebeav.com.
�
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/285">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/285</a>
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2012-05-24
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Title
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Beaver Mountain Ski Area
Description
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Beaver Mountain Ski Area, the oldest family-run ski operation in the country, began with a single rope tow. Voiced by Val Grant. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History & Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
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Stokes Nature Center
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Grant, Val
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Beaver Mountain Ski Resort (Logan Canyon, Utah)--History
Ski resorts--Utah--Logan Canyon--History
Skis and skiing--Utah--Logan Canyon--History
Beaver Mountain (Utah)
Family-owned business enterprises--Utah
Seeholzer family
Seeholzer, Harold
Seeholzer, Luella
Medium
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podcasts
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Beaver Mountain (Utah)
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
2010-2019
21st century
Language
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eng
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
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Sound
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audio/mp3
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Podcast13BeaverMountainSkiArea
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March 21, 2011
Date Modified
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2011-03-21
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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PDF Text
Text
Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
Power Struggle
In 1895, the Hercules Power Company built a plant at the mouth of Logan Canyon to provide
power for Logan. Households were charged per 40 watt light bulb used. The first bulb cost $1.25 per
month, and each additional one cost 50 cents per month. Since there were no other power providers in
the area, Hercules had a monopoly and charged what they wished.
At a special election in 1902, citizens voted in favor of a $65,000 bond to allow the City of
Logan to build a municipal power plant to provide power at lower rates. The city constructed a new
hydroelectric dam, which today is called Second Dam. They charged 35 cents per light bulb or 3 lights
for $1.00.
The Hercules Power Company was not pleased at having competition. During the summer of
1903, in the middle of construction of the city's new power building, Hercules raised their dam 5 feet,
which flooded a greater area, including where the new building was being constructed. Water flooded
across the brand new floor of the building.
Since the rights to the river were owned by the federal government, Logan City filed a federal
application attempting to claim rights to the site, but Hercules had beaten them to it, filing an
application only ten days before. After a heated debate, the federal government made a compromise
and authorized both Hercules and Logan City to operate dams on the Logan River so long as they didn't
interfere with one another.
The monopoly was broken and Logan residents had two separate power providers competing
for their money. A rate war ensued. Rates dropped to 20 cents per light, then to 10 cents. Running a
power plant with less and less revenue became problematic. It was made worse by the fact that this
was a time before metering. To determine their customers' bills, power companies would send a person
called a “checker” to visit each house and count the number of lights and other electric appliances, such
as toasters and irons. People paid per light and appliance, not for how long they used them, so no effort
was made to conserve electricity. Furthermore, people were not always honest when checkers came to
call. Appliances like toasters could be hidden away and, therefore not paid for.
Electric metering helped solve many of these problems. And despite the difficulties of high
demand and intense competition, Logan City's power plant has survived throughout the years. Today,
about 10 percent of Logan's electricity is produced by the city’s hydroelectric power plants like the one
here at Second Dam.
As for the Hercules Power Plant, it is no longer in operation. Ownership of the plant changed
hands several times over the years, and it ceased operation in 1971. In 1973, it was sold to Logan City
for a public park.
Sources:
Portraits in Time: Logan Canyon, a Historical Guide. Published by Bridgerland Travel Region and the
United States Forest Service Logan Ranger District.
Cache Valley Visitors Bureau website: http://www.logancanyon.com/index.php?id=17.
Logan City website: http://www.loganutah.org/Light%20and%20Power/Plants%20and
%20Substations/index.cfm.
Sweeney, Michael S. Last Unspoiled Place: Utah's Logan Canyon. National Geographic Society, 2008.
�The History of a Valley edited by Joel E. Ricks 1956
�
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2012-05-24
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Power struggle
Description
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The first two plants to provide electricity to Logan utilized the Logan River, a power struggle over resources and customers ensued. Voiced by Val Grant. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History & Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
Creator
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Stokes Nature Center
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Grant, Val
Subject
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Hydroelectric power plants--Utah--Logan Canyon--History
Hercules Power Company (Logan, Utah)--History
Logan City Light and Power (Utah)--History
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podcasts
Spatial Coverage
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Logan Canyon (Utah)
Logan River Second Dam (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1890-1899
19th century
1900-1909
1910-1919
1920-1929
1930-1939
1940-1949
1950-1959
1960-1969
1970-1979
20th century
Language
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eng
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
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Sound
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audio/mp3
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Podcast5PowerStruggle
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Jan. 24, 2011
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2011-01-24
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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PDF Text
Text
Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
Plane Crash of 1953
At this location, you will see a 6 ½-foot-tall stone memorial with 40 names on it. On January 6,
1953, a military transport plane crashed at this site while transporting American Korean War soldiers
from Seattle, Washington, to Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
The plane was overfilled with soldiers eager to return home after having been away from their
families for so long. Due to the way the military organized its transports, all the passengers had last
names that started with H, J, and K. According to the flight log, the plane ended up carrying about 400
pounds more than it was designed for. Everything was fine when the pilot radioed in at Malad City,
Idaho. But the plane was not heard from again.
Air patrol and civilians began a search through the Bear River Mountains and found the remains
of the plane in Pat Hollow. It had completely disintegrated on impact. There were no survivors, and
little of the wreckage was even recognizable.
When the remains were analyzed, the cause of the crash was determined to be ice that had
formed on the wings, interfering with the plane's lift. The fact that the plane was overloaded added to
the problem. It also appeared that the plane had entered the mountains from the southeast heading
northwest, indicating they might have been trying to return to Malad for an emergency landing.
Since the crash occurred in the middle of winter in an area with deep snow and low
temperatures, removing all of the bodies proved extremely difficult. A base camp was set up and the
site was guarded until spring when the Army removed the last of the human remains.
In 1967, Gordon B. Hinckley of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints dedicated this
memorial to the victims of the crash. No one was more affected by this tragedy than the relatives of the
victims. In the following years, some traveled a great distance from their homes in southern states to
visit this memorial site. Even today, visitors sometimes find pieces of wreckage, including items that
once belonged to the passengers of the plane. Many decide to leave these tokens on top of the
memorial.
Sources:
Sweeney, Michael S. Last Unspoiled Place: Utah's Logan Canyon. National Geographic Society, 2008.
�
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2012-05-24
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Plane crash of 1953
Description
An account of the resource
In 1953, a military transport plane carrying American soldiers home from the Korean War crashed in Pat Hollow. Voiced by Elaine Thatcher. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History & Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
Creator
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Stokes Nature Center
Contributor
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Thatcher, Elaine
Subject
The topic of the resource
Aircraft accidents--Idaho--Pat Hollow (Franklin County)--History--20th century
Aircraft accidents--Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest--History--20th century
Aircraft accident victims--Monuments--Idaho--Pat Hollow (Franklin County)
Soldiers--Idaho--Pat Hollow (Franklin County)--Death
Airplanes, Military--Accidents--Idaho--Pat Hollow (Franklin County)--History--20th century
Medium
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podcasts
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Pat Hollow (Idaho)
Franklin County (Idaho)
Idaho
United States
Temporal Coverage
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2010-2019
21st century
Language
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eng
Rights
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
Type
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Sound
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audio/mp3
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Podcast14PlanCrashof1953
Date Created
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March 28, 2011
Date Modified
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2011-03-28
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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PDF Text
Text
Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
The Naming of Logan Canyon
Fur trappers came to Cache Valley in the 1800s in search of beaver. As they explored the valley,
they left many place names in their wake. For example, the name Cache Valley comes from the French
word “cache” meaning “to hide.” Not wanting to lug their furs around with them, trappers would
“cache” or hide their furs in a hole dug into a riverbank to keep them safe until they could take them to
market.
The name for Logan Canyon and its river also came from these early explorers. North West Fur
Company trappers were the first Euro-Americans to explore Logan Canyon. They came to Cache
Valley in 1818, led by Michel Bourdon. When Bourdon was killed by Indians west of Yellowstone, his
followers named Logan Canyon's river after him in his honor. Later, trappers renamed the Bourdon
River for another dead trapper, Ephraim Logan.
Although Logan's name is well-known, not much is known about his past. The first record
mentioning Logan shows him in St. Louis in 1823 joining a fur expedition led by William H. Ashley.
He signed onto the expedition at a fixed salary of $200 per year, and traveled to the Rocky Mountains
to trap beaver. During the summer and fall of 1824, he trapped from the Bighorn to Bear River, and
spent the winter of 1824-25 in Cache Valley. In 1826, he traded his furs at the rendezvous in Cache
Valley, and the next summer, he attended the rendezvous at Bear Lake. Later that year, Logan along
with 15-20 other trappers set off for the Snake River Valley. Along the way, Logan and three others
diverged from the rest of the group to explore some minor rivers. They had planned to meet up with
their group in a few days, but mysteriously disappeared. Nothing was ever heard from them again.
Accounts differ on what exactly happened to these men, but many agree that they were probably killed
by Indians.
In 1828, Logan's friends named the Logan River in his honor. When the Mormon pioneers
arrived in the 1850s, they learned the name of the river, but not where the name came from. When it
came time to name their city, John P. Wright suggested the name Logan. There are differing accounts
about whether this name came from the river on whose banks the city was built or a friendly Indian
chief named Logan Fontenelle, who made great efforts to keep peace between his people and the
Mormon settlers. Whichever the case, the name Logan was adopted, and now lives on as a city, river,
and canyon.
Sources:
Sweeney, Michael S. Last Unspoiled Place: Utah's Logan Canyon. National Geographic Society, 2008.
Somers, Ray. The History of Logan. Somers Historical Press, 1993.
Somers, Ray, Julie Van Horn, Amy Reimann, and Clayton S. Russell. History of Cache Valley. Somers
Historic Press, 2004.
Simmonds, A. J. “Names Change but the Places Stay the Same.” In God’s Lap: Cache Valley history as
told in the newspaper columns of A. J. Simmonds, A Herald Journal Book. Herald Journal, 2004.
Record, Patricia L. “The Trapper, the Indian, and the Naming of Logan.” Utah Historical Quarterly.
75.4 (Fall 2007).
“The Legacy of Ephraim Logan” presented to the Logan City Council by Steve Murdock, President,
�Cache Historical Society, Dec. 1997.
Hafen, Leroy R., ed. Trappers of the Far West. University of Nebraska Press, 1983: 295, 341.
Christensen, Vera A. “What's Behind Names of Cache Valley Towns?” The Herald Journal 15 Nov.
1982.
�
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/276">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/276</a>
Date Digital
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2012-05-24
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Title
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Naming of Logan Canyon
Description
An account of the resource
This is the story of Ephraim Logan, a fur trapper thought to be the person after whom the Logan River was named. Voiced by Elaine Thatcher. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History & Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
Creator
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Stokes Nature Center
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Thatcher, Elaine
Subject
The topic of the resource
Logan Canyon (Utah)--Discovery and exploration
Cache Valley (Utah and Idaho)--Discovery and exploration
Logan Canyon (Utah)--Name
Logan, Ephraim
Logan (Utah)--Name
Fur traders--West (U.S.)--History
Fur trade--West (U.S.)--History
Fur trade--Utah--History
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
podcasts
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Logan (Utah)
Bear Lake Valley (Utah and Idaho)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
2010-2019
21st century
Language
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eng
Rights
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
Type
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Sound
Format
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audio/mp3
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Podcast12NamingOfLoganCanyon
Date Created
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March 15, 2011
Date Modified
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2011-03-05
Is Version Of
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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64dc3f1b02596da2fa51daccc2f9d384
PDF Text
Text
Stokes Nature Center
History & Lore of Logan Canyon Podcast Series
Forest Army
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt entered the White House, he faced an economic crisis of
extreme proportions, the Great Depression. The Civilian Conservation Corps, created in 1933, was one
of Roosevelt's New Deal programs. It had two major goals: to help provide relief from unemployment
and to protect natural resources nationwide. The Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, provided
training and work for 2.5 million young men and succeeded in helping to protect, provide access to and
direct attention towards America's wild places.
CCC workers were paid a wage of $30 per month, $25 of which went to support their families
back home. When Cache County was allotted 113 spots in the program, 275 men applied.
Beginning in 1933, uniformed CCC workers labored throughout Logan Canyon. That first
summer, they built a camp at Tony Grove, called Camp F-1. The camp included a mess hall, recreation
hall, barracks, blacksmith shop, hospital, and several other buildings. CCC enrollees in Logan Canyon
worked on projects such as planting trees, building dams and bridges, fixing roads, cleaning and
repairing campgrounds, stocking fish, repairing soil erosion, and fighting forest fires. In their free time,
they made belts out of snake skins, played baseball, and pranked newcomers by sending them on
nighttime hunts for the “snipe,” a mythical creature which was rumored to inhabit the canyon.
According to an article printed in the Herald Journal in September 1933, "One of the most
completely successful of all the items on the New Deal program seems to be the forestry work of the
Civilian Conservation Corps. . . So well is the project working out that a person is inclined to wonder if
it might not be a good thing to make this forest army a permanent affair. . . All of this of course would
be pretty expensive but it might be money well spent. . . certainly the question deserves serious
consideration. This forest army is too good an outfit to be discarded off-hand."
The Guinavah-Malibu campground amphitheater, completed in 1936, is part of the legacy of the
CCC. The amphitheater boasts a stage of limestone surrounded by rows of benches, enough seating for
up to 1,000 people. Today, the amphitheater is used for lectures, concerts, religious services, and local
nature and history programs, such as those sponsored by Stokes Nature Center each summer. It also
remains a standing tribute to the CCC, a group that left a lasting legacy both through their conservation
work, and in the hearts and minds of Americans.
Sources:
Portraits in Time: Logan Canyon, a Historical Guide. Published by Bridgerland Travel Region and the
United States Forest Service Logan Ranger District.
Utah.gov History to Go website: http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/from_war_to_war/the
civilianconservationcorps.html.
Sweeney, Michael S. Last Unspoiled Place: Utah's Logan Canyon. National Geographic Society, 2008.
Utah State History website: http://history.utah.gov/research_and_collections/photos/ccc.html.
�
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/273">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/273</a>
Date Digital
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2012-05-24
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Title
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Forest army
Description
An account of the resource
The Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s left a lasting legacy, both nationally and locally, including a well-known landmark in Logan Canyon. Voiced by Elaine Thatcher. Part of the Stokes Nature Center's podcast series History & Lore of Logan Canyon where each podcast is linked to a specific site in Logan Canyon. Includes transcription.
Creator
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Stokes Nature Center
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Thatcher, Elaine
Subject
The topic of the resource
Civilian Conservation Corps (U.S.)--Utah--Logan Canyon--History
Conservation of natural resources--Utah--Logan Canyon--History
Forest conservation--Utah--Logan Canyon--History
New Deal, 1933-1939--Utah--History
Medium
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podcasts
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1930-1939
20th century
Language
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eng
Rights
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of Stokes Nature Center, (435) 755-3239.
Type
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Sound
Format
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audio/mp3
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Podcast7ForestArmy
Date Created
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Feb. 7, 2011
Date Modified
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2011-02-07
Is Version Of
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Ron Goede
Place of Interview: Ron Goede’s home in Logan, Utah
Date of Interview: 16 October 2008
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Elaine Thatcher and Brad Cole
Elaine Thatcher
Recording Equipment:
Marantz PMD660 Digital Recorder
Transcription Equipment used:
Power Player Transcription Software:
Executive Communication Systems
Transcribed by:
Glenda Nesbit
Transcript Proofed by: Elaine Thatcher, Randy Williams (3/09; July 2011); Ron Goede
reviewed (27 July 2011)
Brief Description of Contents: Ron discusses his family life, education in Nebraska in a
German and Russian German communities, undergraduate work University of Nebraska,
involvement with the Air National Guard as an aircraft mechanic, graduate studies at
Utah State University in fisheries, and his career in fisheries in Utah.
Reference:
ET = Elaine Thatcher (Interviewer; Director, USU Mountain West
Center for Regional Studies)
BC = Brad Cole (Interviewer; Associate Dean, USU Libraries)
RG = Ron Goede
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and
stops in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are
noted with brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
DISC One
ET:
This is Elaine Thatcher and Brad Cole. We are with Ron Goede at his home in
Logan. And it is October 16, 2008. And it’s about 2:15 in the afternoon. And so
we’re going to talk with Ron about his career in fisheries and whatever else comes
up in the conversation. So Ron, why don’t you start by stating your full name
your birthday and birth place?
RG:
Okay. Well my full name is Ronald William Goede. G O E D E. I’ve gotten used
to that all the time now. So I remember. I was born in Columbus, Nebraska on
April 4, 1934. Let’s see what all do we need now.
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�ET:
No that’s all I asked you for.
RG:
Do you want me to just proceed with that.
ET:
Well if you just want to give us a quick rundown on... did you grow up there?
RG:
Well I was there until I was twelve. It was; I don’t know it was a German thing.
And I was raised in a German neighborhood. So my father was a German
Lutheran Minister. And spoke German. And we moved to Lincoln. And then I
grew up in a German Russian immigrant culture. He took over a church there.
And that’s kind of where I grew up. So a lot of my, a lot of my cultural
background, even though it’s not my blood background. I was Prussian, you
know. But my background actually was more German than Russian.
ET:
So did you grow up speaking some German?
RG:
Oh yea. Yea
ET:
You still speak it?
RG:
Yea. Not like I did before. I’m getting self-conscious about it.
BC:
What was your dad’s name?
RG:
Herman Martin Adolf Gerda
BC:
And your mother?
RG:
She was Irene Lavern Hahappold. HAHAPPOLD. And she was from a farming
community. I had an intellectual side with my father’s side and she was from a
big German farming community. Ronald Grandion, Nebraska. So on those two
were big in my background. I learned to have a lot of consideration and respect
for both the intellectual and the working side. Thought a lot of both of them; and
that’s kind of stayed with me, always has.
ET:
What was your education like?
RG:
Um. Well of course I went to public school in Columbus up to the sixth grade and
then went to high school in Lincoln: Lincoln High School. And then I graduated.
And then [in] 1952 from there and then I started to attend [the] University of
Nebraska in Lincoln. Started in engineering but didn’t like it. Stayed with it for a
couple of years and then got out of it and went into arts and science. And that was
a real turn on for me. So after the engineering I majored in botany. And then also
I had a major in Botany and also one in Zoology. And I got a degree out of
Lincoln: a bachelor’s degree.
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�ET:
So you had a double major?
RG:
Yea a double major.
ET:
Botany and Zoology.
RG:
At that time they asked you to have one major and two minors or two majors.
And so I was really into the biology period. So anyway I also got involved at this
time in the military was hanging over your heads pretty hard. So I ended up, while
I was going to University of Nebraska, I joined the National Guard. And I was in
the Air National Guard and I was trained as an aircraft mechanic. So I worked up,
went through one enlistment there. And then I ended up with about a year of
active duty there too in the Air Force.
At that time you had to have eight years in some combination military. The more
active duty you had the less reserve time you had to do. So I was in there until I
was going to be until for that eight years. And then I let’s see. I came to school up
here at Utah State. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with biology so I applied for
graduate work at: Duke and British Columbia for forestry; and Missouri and Utah
State for fisheries; and Wisconsin and Purdue for pathology. And I figured well
I’ll let them wade it out you know. And I got accepted at all of them. And so then
that didn’t help. So I decided, actually one of the reasons I came to Utah was
simply because I’d never been to Utah before. I could have easily gone any one of
those directions because I was interested in all of it. But with a degree in Botany
and Zoology, a bachelor’s, the only job offer I got was with the – was a fruit
inspector in a post office in Kansas City. And I decided well I’d better rethink
this. That wasn’t one of them things I had on my plan.
ET:
So you were still doing your time in the National Guard when you got accepted
here?
RG:
Yea, that’s right. I would have just been finishing it here: the National Guard.
And then when I came here there wasn’t an Air National Guard unit at that time
close by here so I went into the standby’s reserve. I was still doing my eight year.
And then let’s see, I finished the degree well somewhere in there. Let’s see in
1958 I went to work for River Basin Studies for the Fish and Wildlife Services
River Basin studies in Alaska; and [I] did biological surveys on the Sisitna and the
Yukon.
ET:
Was this after you got your masters?
RG:
No, this was between, about half way. I didn’t have any money. And I hitchhiked.
I did about a year here and I was advised I had to get some money somewhere.
And I hitchhiked to Seattle. And then from Seattle the Fish and Wildlife Service
paid [for me to travel to Anchorage]. And then I had to live in a warehouse; I was
just gonna go right to the boondocks, rather than get an apartment. I just lived in a
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�warehouse: a Fish and Wildlife Service warehouse and slept on a sack of seines
[fish nets]. And I had that little stove in there and they’d bring. The guys that
worked the commercial fish stuff would bring me little catches every day. I had
shrimp and things like that. But it wasn’t too . . . couldn’t have many guests. And
then went out to start doing their surveys. And they hired me primarily for my
botany because they wanted me to do complete biological surveys in
impoundments. They were talking about putting three major impoundments on
the Mississippi River. And they wanted to know everything that was alive
basically in that proposed impoundments area up to everything that was going to
be impounded. So I worked the length of the Susitna. And I finished the project.
ET:
And you were identifying plants at some point.
RG:
Everything. Fish and anything I could get. But plants are the one they were
worried about; because it tied in so much to the game forage and everything else.
And the streams were pretty heavily fed by the glaciers; by the Susitna Glacier.
So it looked a lot like a sidewalk, you know, gray, the Susitna. And the salmon
couldn’t make it up, the water was too rough. They had an area called Devil’s
Gorge; the salmon couldn’t even get by there. In fact we lost a person. We lost a
person in Devil’s Gorge. But I finished that project.
And then I decided I had to make some decisions. Of course I couldn’t spend
anything because I gave the banks of power of attorney because I wasn’t in town.
There was no place to spend it. And so they just kept depositing it. That got me to
where I could afford to go back to school. So I came back to Utah State. And I
had a master’s project. I wrote a project up for and it went to Bill Sigler [he] was
my major professor. He was in charge of the Fisheries program, the wildlife
department then. And I wrote one [mater project] up on the effects of sodium
fluoride. Fluoride was a big issue then: fluoridization. And so I had a project on
the effects of sodium fluoride on primary productivity of a stream. I worked it out
on the Logan River. So when I finished that. That took a couple of years. That
was a slow process. In those days you didn’t get a lot of money for [graduate
work?]. A matter of fact I built my experimental unit out of an old airplane
canopy; one that Sigler had from surplus. It was a plastic airplane canopy and I
had to cut it and I molded it in my oven in my apartment; burnt the hell out of
myself. And it worked and then they decided to go ahead and build some for me
– have them built.
ET:
So these were what?
RG:
They were microcosms. They were tubes where I could put samples of algae and
so forth in there and then run the water past and collect the gasses and so forth.
And then I would measure the chlorophyll in the plants to give an idea of what the
productivity was. And that would go up or down, depending where the fluoride
level was.
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�ET:
Did the fluoride have a negative effect on the growth?
RG:
Not too much. It actually got a little. They got a kind of a carbon dioxide gush
when you treat them with the fluoride. So it had an impact but we never, with that
particular study we didn’t work out whether that was bad or not. But it was, it
was. We didn’t have calculators then either. Except the big Marchant and Fridens
[calculators] you know. We had to wait in line to use the calculators. You could
have never set that on a table because it went ka kink, ka kink, ka kink. Finally it
would slosh over. So anyway that was when I got a job. I started to work on a
Ph.D. but it was just. I simply needed to find a way to make some money again.
And I was kind of burned out with the whole process anyway.
So I got a job with Missouri; the State of Missouri, and started to work for them.
And I worked for about I think I went to work for them like in June of ’61. And
then in October of ’61 yea October of ’61 they had the Berlin crisis and I got
activated because I was still in the reserve. I only had about three months left on
my eight years and I got activated. So of course then I’d joined a unit in Ohio and
then they decided they didn’t have a crisis. But you couldn’t get out, you know.
They didn’t have a crisis but they couldn’t let you go either. So I spent a year
there just volunteering for temporary duty anywhere I could, just to keep it
interesting. So I flew all over. And I was still a mechanic. And I was flying all
over the country. So then when I got [out] Missouri had to [give me a job again].
[They] gave me a leave you know; they had to when I got activated. Except the
same job wasn’t there [when I got out, so] I had to take a different job. And when
I got to back to Missouri, I was working for their research group under Slim Funk:
John L. Funk, out of Columbia, Missouri and then I took over.
Just before I went to the service I had taken over the paddlefish study. This was
the reason I was interested in Missouri in the first place. Of course I didn’t get
that back. But I was also doing small bass mouth reproduction studies. And I kind
of lost, lost those projects. And I ended up in lakes and impalement studies and I
finally took over their public use – management in their public use areas like St.
Louis and Kansas City and places. And then they started, they sent me to
Stutguard, Arkansas to a workshop that Fred Meyer had. Fred Meyer was a
parasitologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service. And run it at the fish farming
experiment station in Stutguard. And that was a two-week class. And that really
turned me on. That was a really it was . . . it wasn’t strict fisheries, it was more
fish health. And Fred told me that in about ten years ago fishery biologists would
be a dime-a-dozen. But fisheries biologists with a special deal and I said, Wow
that’s heavy. So I went back to Missouri and I wasn’t back there long. And I gave
several papers, reports on the class. And I enjoyed doing that. That was fun.
And I still like to do things like that. Like to talk, I like to talk to a crowd. Just
like the Bridgerland Folk Society. But anyway while I was doing that, they asked
me that their Chief of Fisheries, P.G. Barnacle in Columbia and he was, would
have been. I mean yea, Chief of Fisheries. And he worked out of Jeff City,
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�Jefferson City. But he asked me if I was interested in, well he wanted me to take
a tour of their, the state fish hatcheries which were directed by AG George Morris
who ended up being. I would class George as another one of my mentors. But he
was a native Hillbilly: a very good fish rater.
ET:
Fish what?
RG:
Fish culturalist. And Missouri, well a lot, well a lot of the culturists in those days
were locals. You know the people that have a knack for it are real savvy of doing
it. They didn’t know why they were doing some of those things. But when I was
taking the tour he had another man Harvey Willoughby was along. And he was
chief of hatcheries for the Fish and Wildlife Service out in Minneapolis. And I
had a good time with them. I could really relate to Harvey. And so Harvey and
George both became really good friends. And they were until they died. I was
always in touch with those two. But George and Harvey were both inducted into
the Fish Culture Hall of Fame, they call it in Spearfish, South Dakota. A Fish and
Wildlife - there’s a national program.
ET:
I never knew it was there.
RG:
Yea. And they have. So those two both made it into the [Hall of Fame]. And so
they would good ones to draw to you know. Then they asked me if I would.
What?
ET:
The Fish Culture Hall of Fame? And it’s with what the state fisheries up there?
RG:
No. It was actually started by someone. Actually a friend of mine, Arden
Trandell, who was Fish and Wildlife Service.
ET:
Arden Trandell?
RG:
Trandell. Yes. And then he retired. But he’s, in fact I think Arden’s in there too.
And then he ran it; took care of it for them for awhile, after he retired. And
they’ve got the biosketches and CV of everybody’s that’s gotten. I’ve got all
those. They ran it kind of through the American Fisheries Society. Then after I
took that tour Harvey got his degree. Harvey Willoughby. I’m just, I’m pointing.
This is a nondescript point. Amorphous. I guess. But anyway Harvey got his
degree at Montana State with C.J. DeBrown. And he had two thumbs. From this
joint down there were two little thumbnails.
ET:
Oh my word.
RG:
Just on the one hand. And I learned fairly early on that he would distract you that
way. When you were arguing with him, he’d fool with that thumb. And I’d tell
him, “Damn it Harvey, put that in your pocket.” And he’s says, “Well it works
sometimes.” And I’d say, “Well I bet you can pick both nostrils at the same time.”
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�ET:
But he was just a wonderful guy. He finally retired in oh Grand Junction. And
he’s dead now.
And his name is Willoughby?
RG:
Willoughby. W I L L O U G H B Y. Just a great guy; he ended up being Chief of
Hatcheries for the Forest and Wildlife Service out of Washington. And really did
a lot of work with new species of fish in Europe oh like the Samo Hucho hucho.
The big Danube trout that they tried [and the] Lake Horid trout that they brought
over here and tried in this country. Neither one of them worked all that well. But
he was just a real
ET:
The Danube trout and the what?
RG:
Lake Horid. I think its H O R I D trout. It was from Central Europe. From the
Alps. But Harvey was a shaker and a mover you know. He was a good advocate
of culture and disciplined culture. And I thought a lot of Harvey. And George
was. Old George Morris was a great, had a great influence on me. And I had my,
when I was trained.
When I got out of the Air Force this last time; after then they gave me a discharge
you know. Then I was finished with it. But I had nine years by this time. But
while I was an aircraft mechanic I got an enormous respect for preventive
maintenance. And I was a crew chief taking care of the aircraft, you know. And I
was working with fighter aircraft. I had the F-80’s and 86’s and 84’s. And, but
that stayed with me. I still feel that way. And I carried that became part of my
professional credo. You know that take care of it before it breaks. And don’t let it
break with it’s up there. The pilots take issue with that. They don’t like that.
When they were going down they looked to see who signed the paperwork. So
this all, this all comes down to where I kind of. Where I went and why I went
there, and what I did when I got there. You know. I started in Missouri I got really
interested in the fish health was a big part of it. And the fish diseases. And while I
was working for Missouri they sent me to Lee Town, West Virginia for about
eight months to study and Dennis Snieszko, who was kind of one of the world
leaders in fish pathology in the world.
ET:
What was his name again?
RG:
Snieszko. S N I E S Z K O: Dennis Stanislas Snieszko. He came here, he was
educated in Poland and came here to get away from Hitler. And because they
wanted him on their bacteria warfare; and he wouldn’t do it. So he came here and
went to work for Kent Dietrich which was bacteria warfare in this country. But
that was okay as long as it wasn’t Adolf. And he didn’t like it. He was a gentle
man. And I had, I had it [?] So I got those three. I had four mentors in my life.
My father was one and then Snieszko, Bill Sigler and George Morris. People that
had that kind of impact on me. A lot of people were teachers, but I always add a
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�little extra for the mentors. They really get down inside. And I guess Dennis
Snieszko is dead now. But boy I had a huge respect for him. Um, let’s see.
ET:
How long were you there?
RG:
About eight months; it was training, a formal training. They would only take four
people a year. So then I was one of the four and it was very intense. Eight hours a
day. You had four hours in a lecture and then four hours in the lab. All just, every
day of the week. And you know, you were, you had exams and all that business.
So it was formal. And Snieszko made a comment. He had been criticized by some
of his peers for taking time out for to train from a research program. And his
response to that was, there’s no point in building the bricks if there’s no one to
build the houses. I still get choked up with this because he really meant a lot. And
that stuck with me. And I never got that out of my system. So I did all my career a
lot of training. But always I did it at the University here. But I did a lot of
workshops. And when I developed that autopsy system I taught that to around
1500 people in 32 different states. And so that was a heavy, heavy part of my
program was to pass on what we were finding to people, other professionals. So
and I just. There were just us two. About two years ago. Two or three years ago I
got the Snieszko Award finally. For distinguished service from the American
Fisheries. And it’s interesting. You know one of the other scientists there, which I
got to be really good friends with and was also, is a world famous pathologist.
He’s dead now too. But it was Ken Wolfe. And Ken got the first Ph.D. here at
Utah State.
ET:
Really
RG:
Not in fisheries. But the first. That was right after they went to the, at University
from Ag College to University. He was the first Ph.D., Bill McConnell got the
second one and John Neuhold got the third one. So, but Ken was a. He started the
work with cell culture and stuff with, in fisheries. And so they could do. He was
the first, developed the first cold-blooded cell line. So they could do the work
with viruses. And I used his methods when I came here I found virus in Kamas;
at the Kamas hatchery: the IPN virus. And started his cell culture here in my lab.
But I was close friends with Ken until he died too. And Glen Hoffman was kind
of the big. Did a lot of the early work on whirling disease. He was there too.
These guys were all world class fish pathologists, men very well known. Hooked
into. n Italy everybody came there to see those guys, you know. So you got to
meet all these people and talk to them. And a lot of them spoke German.
ET:
So you got along fine.
RG:
Yea. It was funny how many of them did speak German; they weren’t all
Germans. But German for awhile was kind of the technical language, scientific
language. So anyway, so that’s where.
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�Then I came back to Missouri and I built their first disease lab, fish disease lab
that they’d had. Down in southeast Missouri, down near Cassville Missouri. Not
too far, about sixty miles out of Springfield. At a stake park down there. And had,
and started working with fish quality. I liked that. I took it a step beyond the
health and or disease and decided I was interested in the quality in a more general
attack. And disease was just a part of that. And that’s kind of, that kind of
became my thrust, all through the rest of my career. Was the fish quality and of
course a lot of work with disease. But always in the context of quality.
ET:
So about what year are we up to now? When you came back to that
RG:
When I came back… I came to Utah after. I came back to in ‘62 after the air
activation. And then went to Missouri for about eight months. And then came …
I had worked before. I had to work. I went to work for the hatcheries there after
Harvey. Had that meeting with Harvey, tour with Harvey Willoughby and
George Morris. Apparently I didn’t know that but I was being assessed or
evaluated. To see, because they were worried about putting a technical person
with these old guys. You know. They weren’t happy about me being there. Those
old guys. They had. Then you had a college graduate they stuck a couple of
adjectives in there too. But Harvey maintained that since George was kind of a
hillbilly himself. But Harvey said he didn’t know many people who would, who
would get along with those guys. But he thought I would. And so the very first
job I had there was working. And so I went to work as a hatchery biologist. And
very first job I had there was a disease case. I never forgot. I still use this in
lectures and stuff. But the, he didn’t want me there. That was pretty obvious.
And he was very nervous about me being there.
ET:
Harvey didn’t?
RG:
No this old guy that was the hatchery superintendent for the Roaring River
Hatchery. Bob Price. And we ended up being really good friends too. But he
asked me. I said, “Well in the first place in Missouri you don’t just sit down and
get right at the subject. You’ve got to get over to it, you know. Talk about the
weather and everything else, you know.” And I finally said, “Well I understand
you’ve had some trouble here.” Oh, he says, “they’re dead. But I don’t think it’s
anything serious.” And he was serious. He was serious as hell. But I knew just
exactly what he meant. But I was really struggling to keep from laughing you
know. And that’s always stuck with me. That there’s being serious and then
there’s being serious. You know. He was worried about it wasn’t going to be
serious for him. He knew the fish were in trouble. He didn’t know whether he
was.
ET:
They’re dead, but it’s nothing serious.
RT:
Yea. But I don’t think it’s anything serious. And so I started picking up a lot of
their jargon. Well we cut it off twice, but it’s still too short. And then I’ve. I had a
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�pretty active program there. And I started the kind of an inspection of the stations.
Boy I spent an awful lot of time on the road, sitting there drawing stuff on napkins
in the coffee shops, trying to figure out how we’re going to approach this. I
always used to. I always used the approach of what are we going to do? I never
did say, “What can I do for you?” And I think that made a big difference for
them, because I made sure that. Because they knew a lot of stuff about fish that I
just. I knew how to. What we were going to have to call some of it. But they
didn’t know. They knew what to do. They had a system for, when they had a
leaking dam board and a raceway. You just can’t seem to stop it from leaking.
They used horse manure. They called it super seal. But it’s the. And it didn’t
work as well from cows because their ruminants and they break the fiber down
too far. But horses they put, it’s dry. It has to be dry of course. They’ll put that in
there and it sucks that in to those boards. And then it swells and it’s obsolete.
ET:
Oh for heaven’s sake.
RG:
And so. The first time I ever went looking for. Up at Kamas they were having
leaky boards. And we went out and got some. I had a tech, one of the techs that
was working for me. We walked: a gal. We walked out and got. I said I got a
bucket and we went out and got some horse manure. And we came back and the
assistant Superintendent Ron Russell. He said, what have you got? And he looked
in there and he say’s I’m not sending you out for strawberries again. But they got
a kick out of that. And so they started calling it super seal too. Now you can’t
find horses. So there was a lot of those kinds of things. I had to take that and
understand why it was working and try to bring it down into some kind of a
quantifiable thing. And I loved it. I really fell in love with the work then.
Because I felt that they needed me and I needed them. And then that’s always
stuck with me. And it was with me when I came here. Bill Sigler recruited me
down here. He called me and said that this job was open out here and that this lab
was built in 61. They started building it in 61. George Post. And so he said, he
wanted me. He was assigned, or asked by the State of Utah to find somebody.
And so Sigler thought that I would be a good one for that. And so I came. And I
thought then. I hated to leave Missouri but this was a whole new, whole new
thing here.
ET:
What year was that?
RG:
That was ’66 when I came here. I was. Sigler called me in 65, the spring of 65 and
I told him I wouldn’t do it unless I had at least three months to get somebody in
place and trained to do the job there. So then they gave me that much time. And
then I came here. But I always, quality, fish quality was central to my program.
So that in 1967 I found the virus in Kamas in the Kamas hatchery.
BC:
And where’s Kamas at?
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�RG:
It’s up by the Jordan[elle], by the Heber and Kamas and Midway. Kamas is on
the Provo [River].
ET:
It’s up on the Wasatch back.
RG:
Upper Provo River yea.
ET:
You found whirling disease up there.
RG:
No IPN virus. It was one of. It was actually. He was losing everything. In little
brook trout. And I looked at those fish and I says, that’s. And I wasn’t even set up
for it yet. And I said “that’s got IPN written all over it: Infectious Pancreatic
Necrosis.” And so I had a friend in Hagerman, Idaho who was at the Federal
Hatchery there. He was a hatchery biologist who had been through and had
already set up some cell culture. And so I took samples up to him and we ran it
through the lab there. And it came out positive. And then I, then I started. It took
me awhile to set that all up here and the get the equipment I needed. And then I
started the inspections. I started inspecting all of the stations.
ET:
So where was the lab here that you set up? Was it on campus?
RG:
Yea. No it was out at the experiment station across from the landfill there.
BC:
On second north?
RG:
Yea. And that’s. You know I had a little office. Merlin Olsen came out to see me
and he didn’t even fit in my office. I told him Merlin we got to go outside.
ET:
That’s still a fisheries office isn’t it?
RG:
Yea. And it’s, it’s re-expanded a lot. It’s a full. That was about 1967. Well it was
‘68. I had basically a full service pathology lab going there. I had the cell cultures
and we had the bacteriology and everything. And it stayed that way. Then in [?]
cause now we’re starting to get down to here you know. This was the formative
stuff that got me into all this. They were having a lot of trouble. You have to back
up here now a little bit and realize where fisheries were at that time. You know.
Like in the ‘50s still, fisheries was pretty trial and error. Especially in Utah and
places like Utah because they were damming all the. Putting it would be the large
central Utah project dams or small irrigation dams. But it was getting where they
didn’t have fish for that. This was, there were no lakes in Utah other than the
Uintas which didn’t have fish. And so you couldn’t just dam that up and hope that
the fish that are there are going to take over. Because it was a different habitat.
And so, and they were doing a lot of trial and error. There wasn’t a lot of sense.
Just put barracuda in you know. Oh let’s try those. They’re pretty. And then you
know. Piranha you don’t have to feed them very often, you know. Oh look,
you’d put a hand. Put a sign there that says keep fingers out of water and you’d
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�have it made you know because that’s an invitation to. Wouldn’t have to feed
them. And this was a research program. The experiment station was primarily to
develop fish culture techniques and methods and equipment to get better fish and
more fish. Primarily more fish. And so I took issue with that whole, that whole
idea. And I told them, I can’t buy. I don’t want to go for more fish. I’ll go for
better fish. And that’s more of a sensible goal than as many fish as I can raise. I’d
rather get the best fish I can raise. And then also decide what you’re going to
plant; what species, when you know. When do you plant them, how many do you
plant. And feed. They were still feeding a little meat when I got here. You know.
In Missouri I had that too. I developed diets. But that was. You would feed livers.
Get a lot of livers. And they’d dye them green so that you wouldn’t sell them for.
And that was the law. And nothing like
ET:
And you fed that to the fish huh?
RG:
Nothing like grinding up a bunch of green liver you know. God, that’s awful stuff.
And then the. Those old superintendents told us. Always figured you couldn’t
raise a trout without liver. And so a lot of times they just almost beg you for more,
some liver. Because they said, I know this is going to do it. And so I’d go ahead
and I’d recommend a little liver for them, just because it made them feel good. It
never did do any good. But anyway the upshot was, part of this is the fact that
there were no diets for trout like the pellets. Like we feed now. And we were
feeding some pellets, but the diets weren’t well worked out. And they would
break in 40-50 days you know. They would have trouble. They would have to
feed a little meat. And everybody, there were several serious programs in the
country working on diets. So a good part of my first year or so was testing,
developing and testing diets. I had mixers and pelleters and everything here. And
then I’d have to. In order for anybody to bid on our feed contract, it might be a
million pounds of feed. They would have to, we would have to test the feed. But
all of this was part of that quality. A lot of the diseases; the bacterial and virus.
The microbes that we had were there because of the feed wasn’t good enough.
They made them very susceptible to everything that was trouble. And so we had
to work. Then we so that’s program. We even had one that we worked out with
Paul Cuplin who was Chief of Hatchers for Idaho. Paul and I worked up a
program on jogging, fish jogging. We’d have them pull. Take the, in the
hatchery, lower the water so that the fish would have to swim harder. And let
them swim for about an hour and then fill it back up. Get ‘em ready.
ET:
Fish exercise program huh
RG:
We called it jogging. And we also had programs for stamina. And stamina was a
big thing. And this gets in the whole idea of fish quality which was. But the fish
stamina, we had a stamina tunnel out here where you would. It would be about
eight foot long and a big. I think it was an 8 inch plastic Plexiglas tube and
reservoirs. And you’d put fish in there and then you would. You could pump
water through it at a given velocity. You measured fish swimming speed in body
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�lengths per second. And you would swim them at a given body lengths per
second for a given time and find out what the. Then you could measure. A lot of
times they would simply start to drop out of the picture, because they couldn’t
hold. They could hold for awhile and then they’d get tired. And you couldn’t tell
whether they were sweating or not. Hard to do with a fish you know. But
anyway so then you measure how long it took them to fatigue and then, and then
how long they could. You would have to let them rest and put them in it again.
But in the streams they don’t always have a choice. So but that all became part of
what you had to evaluate in order to evaluate what the quality of the fish was.
ET:
And was this work applied throughout Utah. Or mostly up here in the North
RG:
No it was. But that was the thing. My program was basically state-wide. And it
was the only program. So they were beginning to pretty much do what I wanted
them to do.
BC:
Was it a program just for the state hatcheries, or does it cover the commercial
hatcheries?
RG:
No, the commercial. We started doing it for the commercial hatcheries later.
They were hard to work with. I had a long history with White’s Trout Farm out
there. [Speaking to Brad Cole] Your neighbor [at White’s Trout Farm]. Clark
White had , Grant’s dad or uncle was the first one. But they’ve had meat and
stuff for a long time. So there’s nothing grosser than that, a big old plop and it’d
float out then [?] and then the fish just coming roaring in there to eat.
ET:
Really. I had no idea. So now at this point did you ever get your Ph.D.?
RG:
Nope. I never [did]. No. In there when I was. That’s why I came back. That
was one of the reasons I came back here. But while in that time I got par planitis
in my eye. They didn’t know what it was for quite a while.
ET:
What was it called?
RG:
Par planitis is a part of the eye. And it was a sterile inflammation; wasn’t a
microbe. And they worked on that for quite a while. Keith Gates was my eye
doctor; it took him quite a while to diagnose it. And he finally said. Discovered
that in England where they have socialized medicine they keep a lot of these
records in one database you know. And he said. “A hundred percent of the par
planitis sufferers were smokers.” And I smoked then. And that was good enough
for me you know. That didn’t mean that everybody that smoked couldn’t get par
planitis. But everyone that had par planitis was a smoker. And I told him, well
that could just be because of you know, that always changes things with the
smokers. They get vassal construction and that sort of thing. So I quit that. But it
did a lot of, a fair amount of damage and I was on steroids for about two years:
Prednizone.
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�And I backed off. I asked him what I was facing. And I said I don’t quite
understand now what route to take in my career. It looked like I probably was
going to loose the sight in that eye. And he advised me to just, it might be well to
look for more administration. And that wasn’t what I wanted to do. But I dropped;
I basically just gave up on the. I just decided I had some things I wanted to finish
while I still had enough eye to do it. And I dropped the Ph.D. program. And still
did a lot of work on it. And the funny part is I had, I already had the class work
and I had taken the comps. I just, I just had still a fair amount of work to do on the
research. And then it probably wasn’t smart to drop the thing when I was already,
had two legs on you know. But I’ve never regretted. It never did, never made too
much difference to me. I just kept. I’ve always kept. I still even now, and it’s
been. I’ve been retired for eight years now. And I still read like I did when I
hadn’t retired yet you know. I keep up with the professional stuff because that’s
where my interests always were. I don’t ever read. Lisa [wife] can’t understand
that because I’d be laying there reading. She thinks I’m reading a novel and I’m
reading up on the history of western thought. She says, “You mean like west.
Like Box Elder?”
BC:
Is there any?
RG:
There’s no thought over there. They haven’t got that far yet. But I’ve always
been. I’ve loved information. I’ve just never been much of a novel reader. But
I’ll read Garret Harden’s Tragedy Commons or something like that. And I love
that stuff so.
DISC Two
RG:
But the quality control is so important; and that all is brought into play. But what I
was trying to point out was we had to develop all these other things before we did.
First you had to know how to even measure the quality. We worked that out with
the. We set up quite a physiology lab up there. But that was where my big
interest was: measuring stress and quantifying stress you know. And measuring
the same things you do in people; the same steroids and so forth. And define what
the stress is and therefore help you define which were the stressors. A stress is a
response and a stressor is what causes the response. So stress is good. The actual
response that’s one of your ways your body has of keeping up. It’s when it has to
do it too long why then it goes to distress and maladaption rather than adapting.
And so then I worked up a system for quantifying that and quantifying health. I
hated when we started to do the inspections for the diseases and the certification.
We killed a lot of fish then just to take just to do the surveys. And I hated just
coming up just whether they had these diseases or not. I wanted, if we’re gonna
kill them let’s get some information out of them. And so that’s what. And so I
developed what they call the HCP: the Health Condition Profile. And that’s the
one I taught. That really caught on finally. I published that in the American
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�Fisheries Society. And that come on. That’s the one I got, people were asking me
to teach that all over the country and in Canada and in Mexico.
ET:
RG:
So some of the work you did helped changed policies at the state and national
level
Yea, very much so. And I was always a member of the fisheries staff down in Salt
Lake. Went to all the staff meetings and I always had a heavy impact on what
they did and the directions they took. And so I knew also what the frustrations
were with the legislature and a lot of times I would have to do battle with them.
They didn’t. That never bothered me too much. There were a lot of times when I
couldn’t come down and couldn’t make it to the staff meeting in Salt Lake. And
they’d do something they knew I wasn’t going to agree with. And then they’d
have to draw straws to see who had to tell me it. The secretary followed me out
into the parking lot one time up there and she said, “Wait I got most of your
comments, but how do you spell sucks.” You know.
So the thing is that the Colorado River Wildlife Counsel asked in 1967. They
asked for me to come up with some idea on. I accused them of dangling fish and
that was the term. I got Harvey Willoughby going on that. I said, “You’re into fish
dangling that’s what you’re doing.” And he says, “What do you mean?” And I
said, “You call and say, we got IPN do you want them. Do you still want the
fish? We’ve got IPN virus.” And I knew a lot of people who were really in sorry
need of the fish. They’d go ahead and take them anyway. Even though they were,
they carried this virus.
And I said, “No.” I said, “I’m just telling you, you’re dangling the fish.” I said,
“Look you can have these.” And so they actually asked me to come up with some
kind of a way to how do we approach fish dangling. There were seven states in
the Colorado Wildlife Council: the seven states on the Colorado. I was so
involved this is hard for me to put this all in one dimension like that. But I
started. It took me three years actually. I came up with the first meeting I had with
them after we talked about the need to do something about this. Then I told them
what I thought was going on and I wanted to, I said, “We need to start looking for
this stuff. And I found out that the ones that were fighting it. I finally realized that
they were afraid they already had these things, and what happens then. And I told
them, “Just don’t bury the horse until you know he’s dead,” you know. “Let’s see
where we are with this thing. We’ll do a survey.”
We had a list of diseases; I put that together. And so they said, they appointed the
Colorado River Wildlife Council fish disease committee. And we worked. And
that was composed by design, one fish, federal pathologist, one state pathologist,
one state fisheries manager and one state fisheries administrator. So that we got
all those elements to argue it out before hand in committee and then go talk to the
larger technical committee and then the council itself.
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�And boy I had a real round. The first meeting then, it was in Paige, Arizona. And
I really got into it with them over there in that. They used parliamentary trickery
to get the floor away from me you know. And they asked if they could ask a
question so they gave the floor up. I gave the floor up so they could ask this
questions. And then they wouldn’t give the floor back to me. And I blew my cork,
you know. And I told them, “My God, you’re gonna listen.” And they says,
“Well.” They said, “We got to study this thing.” And I said, “It’s only . . . this
isn’t the communist manifesto. It’s a three-page policy.” And I said, “I assumed,
I guess I was misinformed. I assumed everybody could read. Everybody that
comes to this meeting can read. And I really got nasty with them. And they finally
agreed to read it and we come in the next day and they passed it. Now as far as
that committee was concerned, and then that goes on back to each of the seven
states and they decide whether they’re going to. They all have to ratify what the
policy that we had developed.
BC:
And what was the policy exactly?
RG:
The policy was that basically you couldn’t, wouldn’t be able to introduce fish into
the Colorado River drainage unless they’d been inspected and certified by
somebody. Which they really sadly needed. They all had their own kinds of
statutes. So this was the policy, they would use their statutes however they had
them set up in order to comply with that policy.
ET:
So did this have to be accepted by legislators, or just through . . .
RG:
No they could do it. Well some of them did it through the legislature but some of
them already were. Like Utah was enabled. We had already been enabled by the
legislature to write rules.
ET:
So this just went to the Fish and Wildlife Service then? Or the Fish and Wildlife
Department.
BC:
Division
ET:
Division. Whatever it is at the state level?
RG:
Well the fish. Oh at the state level. Yea.
ET:
That’s what you’re talking about.
RG:
Yea, each of the local. That’s what the council was. The council didn’t have the
Fish and Wildlife Service. It only had the states. And they all agreed. They just
didn’t they didn’t know how to approach it. And that’s what I had to do. But at
this time, at this time we found out that the. Well I found out that we didn’t have
standard methods. So if you’re going to inspect and have. You got to have some
kind of standard methods and people acceptable to use them.
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�ET:
Now when are we talking about? When did this happen?
RG:
This was [19]67. It took me ‘67, ‘68 let’s see. No ‘67 was when I did it for Utah.
‘69 I did it for. I was asked to go to Colorado River Wildlife Council and then
that took basically it took then through ’70; let’s see ‘68, ‘70. Yea it took me two
years to get it all set up so that they would all take. And we finally passed it and it
went into effect in [19]73. And from ‘73, I was on the committee for nearly 20
years. And we basically met every year and we would, we had forms they had to
fill: had inspection forms that had to have standard methods in order. And people
that were on our list as acceptable to do the inspection. And we had to put that all
together. And then we would meet periodically to fine-tune the thing if we had
problems. But it worked well.
ET:
Is the Logan River part of that drainage?
RG:
No
ET:
It doesn’t ago into the Colorado River does it?
RG:
No but the states all, what the states all did that was just [like what] that council.
The states all passed it for their whole state. So that once we did that then it was
the same for the Logan River and the Bear River and as it was. This is all the
Great Basin here so. And the Colorado River is. Well a lot, a lot of, about half the
states in the Colorado River drainage. And it’s the same way with the upper
Colorado States: Idaho, Colorado and Utah kind of sit at the top of the drainage.
But it was difficult because we did. And then also all this time I was also working
with the American Fisheries Society.
And I set up Jim Warren. We started to work on the disciplines in sections. We
were trying to create a fish health section. American Fisheries Society was
geographic, you know. You had a western division, a central and so on. And the
states each would have a section, chapter in those divisions. But there was nothing
for the disciplines. And the disciplines were too dilute. And so Jim and I
worked/did the changes in the constitution of the American National, American
Fisheries Society that set up the formation of discipline sections. And then when
that passed, we became the first discipline section to form under that. And so we
had the fish health section of the American Fisheries Society. And then fly fish
culture and pollution and so forth. All these started to form. And then part of our
mission was to police our ranks and to come up with standard methods. And, so
we had technical procedures committees and all that stuff, you know, and
certification board.
And they had an unassembled exam kind of thing. What their criteria, their
education and their experience. And they had to meet criteria in order to be
considered a certified inspector. And this was all part of the. So, but I actually had
done this for the most part before we ever got to, before they ever got to that;
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�because I’d done it through the council. And when it passed the council, Colorado
River Wildlife Council, it really was quite a stir because that’s the first regulations
in the country. And the Great Lakes Commission filed suit. They called and they
wanted some information. This was all of the states on the Great Lakes and
Canada. And everybody that was on the great lakes. And so they used the Great
Lakes Commission and did something very similar with little odd and end
differences depending on geography and so forth. But it was the same thing; each
state [province] in Canada ratifying a policy. And then the eastern seaboard states
followed suit and then finally the Columbia [River]: the Columbia drainage. And
so within about four years we had the biggest. We had basically the trout and
salmon of North America covered.
ET:
Wow
RG:
All starting from this. For all purposes I started what they call the drainage
concept of fish disease control. And so drainages mean a lot to me you know.
When I was taking a test after my accident, in the LDS hospital they were giving
me these little tests to find out if I was with it or not; or how I was doing. And
they wanted me to name the capitals of the states. And I just boom, boom, boom,
boom, boom, boom all the way down. And she says, “How do you do that?” Lisa
said too. She thought there’s got to be a mistake there. And I said, “No.” I said,
"I know where the drainages are. That was so much a part of who was doing
what, where and when that I never even had to think about it.” I said, boom,
boom, boom. I knew what rivers they were on there, what the drainages were and
where the capitals were.
ET:
So basically it sounds like once you got the Colorado River Wildlife Council to
read your proposal
RG:
Yea
ET:
They got right on board with it.
RG:
Yea
ET:
So you didn’t have to fight that battle that much once they read it.
RG:
No. I set up a. You say you’ve got this centered more around the tape. I’ve got a
copy of [the] resolution, very first; a resolution for their consideration. And why
we should be looking at this, you know. And they bought that. They approved that
one, that finding in ‘72.
ET:
Because there weren’t any political enemies of this policy?
RG:
No. There was more fear. They really were. That was serious business if they had
to close hatcheries, because it meant destroying the fish. You might have to
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�destroy 100,000 pounds of fish. And so, Nevada was hard. And Nevada said you
can’t close. Willow Beach had IPN virus: that big national hatchery down there
by Lake Mohave. I remember well we had a big knock-down drag out over that
too. And I said, “If we close Willow Beach we’re not going to have fish for a
season, for a whole season, which hurts. You know licensing and that type of
thing.
And so I said to them “Well so handle it. Handle it.” But I told them, “No I think
what I would like to do then, if that’s the case. Is that the only reason you’re not
going for this.” And they said, “Yea, we simply can’t. We can’t handle
destroying that many fish because we won’t have fish to satisfy our program.”
And I said, “If most of these programs are like ours, they’ve got surplus fish. And
so let’s talk to all of these seven states and they’ll, see if we can get enough
surplus fish out of all of those states to cover your needs for the loss of Willow
Beach.”
And that’s what we did. So it’s all having a heavy impact on Utah too. And you
know we destroyed for IPN we destroyed the Kamas Hatchery and destroyed the
fish: disinfected. You have to disinfect it with chlorine. You know and start over.
And we did it with Springville; we did it with Logan hatchery here and the one at
Loa. But [we] didn’t have to do them all in the same year.
ET:
So did that result in wiping out IPN?
RG:
Yea, never got it back again. And I had also been pushing for fish quality so hard
and measuring stress that I started selling the idea that it’s a game of inches. I call
it incremental degradation. Colorado says, “We call that incremental
aggravation.” And I said, “How about incremental defecation.” And we was
teaching that if the fish, the hatchery is properly managed, properly loaded and
the fish are properly handled, you’re not going to have these diseases. Even if you
have them, it won’t be too serious. We just can’t afford to have them go with that
disease out where the wild fish are going to get clobbered.
Let’s see I retired in 2000. Yea it was 2000. Then we had, we used to feed a lot
of antibiotics you know on a grand scale. And after I started that we did the
bacterial diseases and so forth. We hadn’t since 1972. Since from ‘72 to 2000 we
only used antibiotics twice in that whole, that whole period. Because it was a
proper approach and disciplined approach to the raising of fish that made the
difference. And then when they finally, the FDA started passing laws that said
you couldn’t use these drugs: antibiotics. Or you couldn’t use the stuff even to
just clean the gills up you know. And I said, “I don’t.” Boy they were afraid to
drop some of that stuff. And I said, “I don’t think you’re going to have, just keep
doing what you’re doing and you won’t have, you’re going to have a very minor
problem.” And that’s what they did. . . . But it was, we just never let up on the
game of that business you know; you can’t. And then when I went to work. When
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�I retired, Colorado asked me to come and talk to them. They had a problem with
their fisheries managers were not agreeing with, particularly whirling disease.
And I wasn’t working for Utah anymore. Eddy Coachman, who was their Chief of
Fisheries; I had never been on his Christmas card list. We were kind of enemies.
Because I’d never agree to what Eddy was doing. Anyway he’s the one that asked
me to come and talk to them, which made me suspicious; probably going to hang
me or something. But they paid the way, so I agreed to go. And for three days I
fielded questions from them. Eddy just says, “I’m gonna let you handle this.” He
says, “I’m, I have nothing left to say to them.” So I fielded a lot of really tough
questions. That’s when they said the incremental aggravation. Anyway I told
them, “You guys, you’re losing track of what, of what you’re all about.” And I
told them. And I still. And I gave this lecture to Utah a number of times too. But
I said, “We have, our mandate is to be stewards of the natural resource.
Agriculture mandate is to be stewards of commodity. Production of commodity,
they’re not always happy playmates.”
And I said, “What makes it tough for us in this business, for the state fisheries
programs, is that when you. A lot of ours is pure recreation. The rainbow trout
and stuff that we plant, that’s in a sense it’s a commodity; because we’re selling
our licenses and so forth.” But I said, “The rest of the part, the wild cut throat and
all of this stuff. All of the [?] the least chubs and the humpback suckers and stuff
like that in the Colorado.” I said, “That’s stewardship. And they hadn’t thought
about that.” And I said, “You can, you can. The further you get away from
stewardship. Over here with the rainbow, we can. There are a lot of things we can
do with the rainbow. We can put them back. But over here you can’t go out and
kill out all the cut throat because some of them are endangered species, you know.
And in fact you couldn’t even if you wanted to.” And they had not thought about
that so. I had sold all that to Utah years ago. And you’ve got, you’ve got to be
concerned. The rainbow we can do something anytime. It would be costly but we
can do it. But over here you’ve got these wild cut throat and there’s nothing we
can do. And so that’s it. You know.
ET:
So your approach with the wild fish is habitat
RG:
Habitat, yea. Habitat and making sure that if there are any fish. I also classified all
the streams in the state. And I had help from the managers to do that. And they
gave them how I wanted them ranked you know. So that would go in our
computer database so if this says you’re gonna plant more rainbow trout in
Gunnison Lake and that’s not supposed to be there, the computer will flag that.
And, so we don’t run the risk of just inadvertently putting them where we
shouldn’t.
And that had all become part of the operation. And so I say it’s hard because what
we did had an impact on the whole state and all of the fisheries. And when we
started to decide, when we wanted to say when we discovered. We didn’t know.
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�When I first got here our ideas of a cut throat trout were relatively primitive
including mine. No mine, yea mine were pretty primitive too. It’s nice to be
primitive every once in a while.
But anyway a cut throat was a cut throat was a cut throat trout you know. We
knew. We knew about the Colorado River Cut Throat and the Bonneville Cut
Throat and Bear Lake Cut Throat and so forth. But we didn’t treat it that way.
We were getting eggs out of the Yellowstone Lake. Finding a lot of Yellowstone
cut throats and then we would take a few locally. But we weren’t managing that
way. And then we discovered, we found a pure strain of Bonneville cut throats in
Trout Creek or in Deep Creek mountains on the, like on the Nevada border. And
then we were convinced they were pure, pure Bonneville cut throat. And this
point we started analyzing all the DNA and all that other stuff so we could
actually identify the Bear Lake cut throat is actually a Bonneville cut throat. And
that all is because this was, this was Lake Bonneville. And over on the other side,
it’s the Colorado River cut throat. The Colorado cut throat they call it. And, but,
so we had done so much damage through bad management and so forth. And so
the certification law added a whole new wrinkle. And so if I wanted to put, I
wanted to reclaim cut throat water through like . . . And we got a lot of streams
like that. Where the cut throat, the cut throat are. There were cut throat up in the,
really high waters. And … but you couldn’t put anything up there. You want to
start it again. Get cut throat up there. But it’s got to be the right cut throat going to
the. And it’s got to be a Bonneville cut throat going into Bonneville cut throat
water. And then we had management populations and also recreation populations.
You had to . . . that was part of the management. You often didn’t even allow
fishing. But you would use that as a source to get some of the other stuff started in
another place. But you had to have that all certified, those populations.
And it took a couple of years to certify a population. And we would do that here.
We would certify the populations. And then they were free to take eggs or fish.
Usually they would take eggs. And then move them to another drainage and let
them hatch in another whatever other stream. And, so that all became part of a
kind of a routine operation. And we’ve, we kept the Bonneville’s off just recently,
off the rare endangered species. They were, they wanted to list them as
endangered species which would have: we could kiss the management good bye
then. Because then you can’t do anything. But, that all becomes part and parcel of
that whole. And then the system that HCP: Health Condition Profile system.
That’s probably the one that I, that I’m best known for is the Health Condition
Profile. And we just call it HCP. But I used to call it autopsies. And then I found
out that’s not what I was doing. Did you know that?
ET:
Necropsies.
RG:
Do you know why?
ET:
No
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�RG:
An autopsy is of your own species.
ET:
Oh
RG:
So fish don’t autopsy themselves. So a human can autopsy another human; that’s
an autopsy. But it is necropsy. And I told them, “But fish don’t have necks. We’ll
call it necropsy.” Well they don’t have knees either. But and then I started that
and that’s. When I quit or retired I had around about a thousand of them done in
the state and I kept track of both the hatchery ones and the wild ones.
ET:
So the HCP was done on a dead fish
RG:
Yea. You would.
EG:
Okay
RG:
Yea. What it is. In an infinite population, more or less, a big population I would
have to have 20 fish. But I could, I could take from the 20 fish and say especially
if they were the same year class. I could take and I can tell what’s wrong, the
condition of the whole water with those 20 fish statistically. And I had, I had done
the program. I’ve got a book out on it. And I wrote and designed a computer
program for it. So you entered your data and it would calculate it and then type
the report form.
ET:
Wow
RG:
And so I taught that. And just, just everyone, they’re still using it. I thought
probably that it would disappear. But Lisa and I went through the lab in Seattle,
that big fisheries center they got up there. I know a lot of those people. And they
introduced me as we were going. The gal was doing some work with one of the.
And they introduced me and she says. She’s calling it the Goede index. And I
said, “You didn’t get that from me.” It supposed to be the Health Condition
Profile. And that’s, apparently that’s what they’re starting to call it: the Goede
index. And now whether it’s a big research project or what, it’s just one of their
tools. Even if you look at one fish, if you catch it up at White Pine, you can open
that fish and you can get some idea where he fits in this scheme. You know,
whether it’s something you should be worried about. And so, but I have people
tell me that I was the chief source of mortality in the states too. I sweep down
there in the north and kill all the first born and things like that once a year.
ET:
So I want to know if you have been inducted into the Fish Culture Hall of Fame.
RG:
Nope, not yet. One thing you have to do there is get someone to
ET:
Nominate ya.
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�RG:
Nominate you. I was surprised when I got in the Sneszko Award because it’s
kind of the same kind of thing but for pathologist. You know.
BC:
I met a guy in Flagstaff that nominated himself for a Pulitzer Prize.
RG:
Well someone’s got to do it.
ET:
We’re not going to have much time left on our card I think. Doesn’t this last
about an hour and a half on the high.
BC:
I don’t if you’re on the high end or not.
RG:
Is there anything that you wanted me to concentrate on.
ET:
You’re doing great.
BC:
We might have to do another session sometime.
RG:
There’s just so much.
BC:
I was sort of curious about. Tell us a little bit about Bill Sigler.
RG:
Okay. Well you’ve got the Mossback book. [Mossbacks by Ron Goede and Lisa
Duskin-Goede: Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives: 925
G551]
ET:
Well I was going to ask you. Has Lisa. Has Lisa done the Mossback’s work.
Has she, did she interview all the guys.
RG:
She interviewed them, yea. And she helped; she didn’t finish that whole study.
(That was one of those things that, what was her name? Kathy Pearcy (was it
Pearcy) in Humanities or something—for someone else. [Lisa] was doing that
when she was doing gerontology and all that stuff. She thought that would be a
good Ph.D. program.)
ET:
Well just briefly maybe you ought to mention who the Mossback’s are since we
brought it up.
RG:
Okay. But, you have, we gave you a copy of . . .
BC:
Yea, I have a copy of that.
ET:
Just mention who are the Mossbacks.
RG:
Okay. The Mossback’s were: it’s a little hard to define because it started
informally, you know, when Bill Sigler retired in 1974. And he was bummed out
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�about retiring he didn’t like that. And, so we had a kind of a get-together. A lot of
his old students got together and had a little seminar: a little symposium. Anyway
that didn’t start the Mossbacks, but it got them talking about it. Well these guys
are all, they were. The mossbacks were originally were old Bill Sigler’s, older
students. And Sigler came out of the, retired from the war, WWII. These guys
were mostly GI’s and most of them out of WW II on the GI Bill; a lot of them
combat veterans. And that was a little different, not your average college
freshman, these guys. A lot of them had things they still won’t talk about.
So anyway, we decided to get together. About three years in a row we got
together and then we just decided that you had to be in this business for a while
before you got to do this. And we call them mossbacks. Because you have to be
there long enough until you’ve got moss on your back. And but they’re, they’re
all over. They’re not just Utah though. They’re all, most of them, are from within
reasonable [distances], like Fort Collins.
McConnell was from Fort Collins. He got that second Ph.D. Bill McConnell he
taught at Colorado State until he retired. Bob Behnke wrote the book; this new
book on trout and salmon of the world: great book. And Jay Udy is in his 90s
now. And he was in mapping before the war effort: cartography and that sort of
thing. Stacy Gebhards, he was here and he’s got a number of good books out. He
was a good biology and he was Chief of Fisheries for a while for Idaho. He’s
written a book called Wild Thing: [backcountry tales and trails] it’s about his
career. He took Arthur Godfrey. There were three: Arthur Godfrey, Walter
Hickel and there was one other. He took them all on a float trip down the Salmon
River. I was kidding him. You know, Hickel was the one that said you can’t let
nature run wild.
ET:
Wasn’t he Interior Secretary?
RG:
Yea
ET:
Yea
RG:
He was Governor of Alaska too.
ET:
Alaska
RG:
Anyway. So anyway these guys, Fred Eiserman. Fred was just inducted into the
Wyoming Hall of Fame, along with Jim Bridger. I’m going wow! You’re, that’s,
isn’t he a little older than you. I said, “I don’t think I’ve met him. He is a
mossback?” No I’m serious. It’s in the, I’ve got the magazine and they had a big
ceremony. It’s a serious award. There were four people that were inducted. It’s
the Wildlife Hall of Fame or something. It’s not a Fish and Game type of thing,
but Wilderness Hall of Fame. And Fred got his degree here.
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�ET:
Fred?
RG:
Fred Eiserman and he worked for Wyoming. But Wylie is a good friend of mine
and he’s the youngest one. And Stew Clark just died. Eight of them are gone now.
So that’s one of the problems with this kind of a group. So we have every year
when one of them drops out, we have a toast. And break the glass you know. The
first year, well Sigler was still alive when Bud Phelps died. We threw the glass.
We decided to throw, just throw them in. Let’s do just like they do in the movies
and we’ll throw the glass in the fireplace. But I found out only about half of them
could hit it. We had glass everywhere, boy. It took us about an hour to clean up all
the glass. So we started putting a rock in a garbage can and we’d throw them in
the garbage can then finally.
But there is Al Regenthal: he is about 87 now. No he’s older than that. Anyway,
most of them are up there. And, I basically, when I wrote the little prologue that I
pointed out that we: one thing that occurred to us as we were doing all this. And
of course I was a part of that from the beginning. But these guys were the
vanguard of a very young profession. They were the first ones out there actually
doing some science and not just empirical wisdom. And it was kind of interesting.
They were born in the depression, tempered by war. And it was serious. Some of
them had some pretty tough times. So and they went into school probably
couldn’t have done that if it hadn’t have been for the GI Bill. Regenthal and
Essbach and McConnell all came out here together from New Jersey. And
Raganthall’s still with Utah, Arizona. Essbach went to Arizona, working for their
fish and game. And McConnell was at Colorado State teaching. And McConnell
just died.
ET:
So it sounds like your career kind of, and theirs spans the transition from folk
wisdom to scientific-based. Scientifically-based
RG:
Yea. That’s probably a good one. I haven’t used that, that’s probably a good term.
I always called it empirical wisdom. You know. Just because it, a lot of it was
empirical it wasn’t scientific. But a lot of it was good stuff. And a lot of the early
stuff before those guys was just terrible. And it was, if it was wet it was a quality
fish. So but that’s when you carp and everything else you know. So, it’s pretty
important I think. But their level, I think we were good for the, our effort was
good for . . . . And I’ve been told that several times by people who’ve retired
since. That he felt that, that our effort through the experiment station and so forth
elevated the fisheries and brought it to a different plane. And it’s hard. They
didn’t have good hatchery people. I was their technical advisory because I was
coming up with all the new stuff. But they had Chief of Hatcheries too, but the
guys didn’t know anything. And they were regional. And this was a big thing that
I changed. They were, each region like the northern region in Ogden, would have
somebody. Their Chief, their fisheries manager would be in charge of the
hatchery. It was a line staff organization. And I told them. I said, “These guys
don’t know anything about culture.”
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�So I wrote a fairly involved definition of culture. And told, let’s see Bill Geer got
to be Director at that particular time, Bill Geer was director. And I told him, “We
would like to, I would like to see you centralize the hatchery; because they’ve got
to be working for someone who actually understands hatcheries.” And so the rest
of the organization is still strictly line staff. But the hatcheries were centralized.
And then there was a Chief of Hatcheries in a Salt Lake office who came out of
the culture scenario. And then I knew a world-class fish culturist, Joe Valentine,
who was wanting out of the Fish and Wildlife Service. He already had 18 years
with them. And so, I got them to hire him. He was willing to come. Joe started
the work for them. And I liked Joe. And Joe and I got along really well. So that
was a big help too. So we, we had a good staff. And I think Utah led the way on
fish health management because nobody had that. That drainage concept really
brought the thing to the range of possibility. We’d failed many times because
there was just too many, you couldn’t draw something up for Utah that fit Florida,
you know, because it’s just a whole different ballgame. In the southeast water,
something they pump out of their basement. And here it’s the lynchpin of survival
you know. So anyway it’s very important and I felt good about it and Sigler.
I point that out in the Mossback book that one phrase he always used that I coined
is: That it was a privilege to serve. And so I . . . . there’s just a few things that I
get emotional about. And that’s where it was: a great bunch of people. And that’s
not easy to maintain that level. I don’t know if they’re at that point anymore.
ET:
When you say it was a privilege to serve. That’s sort of an old-school approach to
public service
RG:
Yea.
ET:
So you felt, you felt the weight. I’m asking I guess. You felt the weight of the
public responsibility on your shoulders?
RG:
Yea, this was our mandate to steward the natural resource. And do a decent job
of it. And a lot of the battles were just sheer ethics. You know. Yea, boy I had
some tremendous . . . Boy I remember one big battle I had with them. I got up and
left the meeting. And I still had to drive back to Logan. And I was furious. And I
said “I’ve bent over backwards to do a lot for this outfit. But I[‘ll be] damned if
I’m going to bend over forwards.”
ET:
And that was with whom?
RG:
With the fisheries staff. And then when, over whirling disease when the Leavitt’s
were, when . . . that was, those were black days.
ET:
Yea, we haven’t even talked about whirling disease.
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�BC:
Yea, we haven’t talked about whirling disease.
RG:
Oh wow. Well those were. That was the end of a lot of things. We got bad hurt
on that: a lot of people lost their jobs.
ET:
Do we need to schedule another session?
RG:
Yea I think if you’re. Because now you’re ready to really get into some of those
Things . . . There are some things there that are kind of funny too. And I even
have, I got along with the Leavitt’s and then I didn’t get along with them you
know. Dane Leavitt, the Governor’s brother [Mike Leavitt]. I like Dane. He’s a
lawyer in Cedar [City, Utah].
BC:
Did they ever try to sell insurance for the whirling disease or?
RG:
The Levitt Group. Yea, no. Mark who . . . they were always covering up for
Mark. He was the one that was screwing things up. Young Mark. And he’s one of
those guys that would always answer the phones in an important meeting and just
sit there and talk. And that just really hacks me off when people do that. And so I
called him, and I called his brother Dane in Cedar. Said, you know, “I said I want
Mark’s phone number, cell phone number.” And he was suspicious right away
because he knew I didn’t like Mark. And I told him what he was doing. And of
course that even irritated Dane. And he like that so much he set it up. He decided.
He had somebody call. I told him what I wanted is that we got a meeting on
Thursday and I want someone to call Mark at that meeting and ask for me. And so
that’s what they did. Dane set it up and Mark picked that phone up and he says,
“Hello.” And then he says, “Oh.” He says, “Oh.” He says, “Here it’s for you.”
Oh yea. I don’t know whether Mark ever found out that that was Dane.
ET:
Well let’s, why don’t we stop here. It looks like we need to talk about
whirling disease, some of your ethical battles. You want to talk more about Bill
Sigler?
BC:
I’d be curious to talk just about Logan and stuff and that.
RG:
Yea.
ET:
So we need to have another session with you I think. We don’t want to wear you
out all in one.
RG:
Yea.
ET:
Are you doing okay?
RG:
Oh yea. It’s just that. When Eisner read that little bio sketch I did for the
Mossback book he said. He said he could see. He said I could see reading that
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�BC:
that you had a calling. And it’s actually true. That idea of quality really was stuck
in doing something. And I’ve always been very public service oriented, service
oriented. I’m not interested in the other stuff. I don’t really care about the
material stuff that goes along with it, because it usually doesn’t. But anyway it
was so. It is hard to talk about that without setting that foundation.
Yea. That’s good.
ET:
That was great. This has been a great session.
BC:
I’m afraid to turn this thing off that I’ll erase it or something.
RG:
You know when we joined, when we became the. Oh! When we became the
Natural Resource, Department of Natural Resources and the Division of Wildlife
Resources under the department, that was not a happy day either. You know.
That was back in the ‘70s. Bud Phelps was Director then, and Phelps was a good
friend. And the people, the guys, all the parks and forests, everyone became part
of the . . . and there were, they shared a coffee room. It was the old DWR coffee
room. But they said, Bud said, they were sniping at each other, always just under
their breath. And Bud Phelps came out with a directive then that said, “They’ll be
no sniping in the coffee rooms.” It was a directive. And so I went out in the hall
with him and I said. “You know he used to have a wall committee. You couldn’t
put anything on the wall unless it passed the wall committee.”
BC:
We had one of those in Flagstaff.
RG:
Oh hey.
BC:
The Classics committee is what they called it out there.
RG:
Well I told Bud. “Well you know now you’re gonna have to, now your gonna
have to form a snide comment committee.” And he says, “What do you mean?”
And I said, “Well someone’s gonna have to decide in whether a snide comment
has in fact been made.” And he sat there and stared at me. And I said, See right
now you’re wondering if I’ve made a snide comment.
ET:
That’s one of the things I like about you Ron, your sense of humor.
RG:
That’s the only thing that keeps you up and running.
ET:
Well, do you have a calendar available? Do you want to try and set up another
appointment now or later?
BC:
I don’t have a calendar with me but I’m usually pretty open.
ET:
Let me grab mine.
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�
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Ronald William Goede interviews, 16 & 28 October 2008, and transcriptions
Description
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In Ron Goede's first interview he talks about growing up in Nebraska, earning a bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, joining the Air National Guard in Nebraska, attending Utah State University to earn a Master's Degree in fisheries, and his work in various fisheries throughout the United States, especially in Utah at Utah State University. In his second interview Mr. Goede talks about his work as a fish pathologist in Utah, whirling disease in fish, water stewardship, politics: his fight to get good science into the Utah fisheries and water legislation.
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Goede, Ronald William, 1934-
Contributor
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Thatcher, Elaine
Cole, Bradford R.
Subject
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Goede, Ronald William, 1934---Interviews
Goede, Ronald William, 1934---Family
Goede, Ronald William, 1934---Career in Fisheries
Goede, Ronald William, 1934---Childhood and youth
Fisheries sciences--Research--Utah--Logan River
Fisheries sciences--Research--Missouri
Goede, Ronald William, 1934---Friends and associates
Willoughby, Harvey
Morris, George
Snieszko, Dennis Stanislas
United States--Air National Guard
Doctoral students--Utah--Logan
Fishes--Diseases--Research--Utah
Fishes--Quality--Research--Utah--Logan
Fishes--Quality
Fish hatcheries--Utah--Logan
Fishery policy--Utah
Colorado River Wildlife Council
Fishery policy--United States
American Fisheries Society. Fish Health Section
Sigler, William F.
Mossbacks (Club)
Whirling disease--United States
Whirling disease--Research--Utah
Whirling disease--Research--West Virginia
Utah. Division of Wildlife Resources
Utah--Politics and government
Fishery management--Utah
Trout Unlimited
Fishery research stations--Utah
Fisheries--Utah--Monitoring
Fishery scientists--Professional ethics
Utah State Agricultural College. Wildlife Dept.
Mentoring in education--Utah--Logan
Student contests--Utah--Logan--Anecdotes
Women in fisheries--Utah--Logan--History
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Interviews
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Logan (Utah)
Alaska
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Colorado River
Lostine River (Idaho)
Utah
Colorado
Kamas (Utah)
Madison River (Wyo. and Mont.)
Strawberry Reservoir (Utah)
Scofield Reservoir (Utah)
Utah
United States
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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1970-1979
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2000-2009
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21st century
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eng
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 2 Fd. 10 & Box 3 Fd. 1
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Inventory for the Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection can be found at: <a href="http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php">http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php</a>
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28 October 2008
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Logan Canyon Reflections
-
http://highway89.org/files/original/e6b1afc9e894b0b290254aedb66d94a3.mp3
50f989b770159ede9c1934fa91b3e517
http://highway89.org/files/original/33b8d6a112e411b69ba487897465c1ea.pdf
1801e8066e07ae2c3d3b8c53d546bb77
PDF Text
Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Barrie Gilbert
Place of Interview: Mr. Gilbert’s office at Utah State University
Date of Interview: 21 May 2008
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Brad Cole
Brad Cole
Recording Equipment:
Marantz PMD660 Digital Recorder
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Susan Gross, 10 July 1008
Brad Cole and Barrie Gilbert; Randy Williams (1 June 2011)
Brief Description of Contents: The interview contains a brief description of Barrie Gilbert’s
childhood and details of his schooling and subsequent career in wildlife management. It includes
his story of being attacked by a grizzly bear, his attitudes on wildlife management in both the
U.S. and Canada, and the political pressures he and others face(d) in doing research in wildlife
management and in management policies.
Reference:
BC = Brad Cole (Interviewer; Associate Dean, USU Libraries)
BG = Barrie Gilbert
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcript. All additions to transcript are noted with brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[00:00]
BC:
This is Brad Cole from Special Collections and Archives at Utah State University. It’s
May 21st [2008 and we’re visiting today with Dr. Barrie Gilbert, Professor Emeritus in
the Natural Resources department at Utah State University.
Barrie, I’d like to start off the interview with starting at the very beginning and ask you
when and where you were born.
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�BG:
Alright. Kingston, Ontario, Canada, on the 3rd of June 1937.
BC:
And who were your parents?
BG:
My parents were John Kay Gilbert – he worked in the Canadian Locomotive Company in
Kingston, Ontario. My mother was Lorraine Isabelle Hall, from the Kingston area. Both
of them grew up and were born in Kingston, as actually, my grandfather and greatgrandfather before them. Before that they came from Limavady, Ireland. That’s my early
life.
BC:
What are some of your earliest memories of growing up in Kingston, Ontario?
BG:
The earliest thing I remember was things like catching frogs at my grandfather’s camp.
We had a summer place; actually it was the only place that we owned, on Lake Ontario. I
think that’s how I became a biologist. My mother’s father was quite a fisherman and duck
hunter and he had a little shack – actually, a many-roomed shack because he had a family
of six kids – which my mother was one. My father bought a real old shack on the same
bay, Sand Bay, where I spent all of my summers as a kid rowing and sailing and falling
off rafts that I made in the cold water. Probably that’s where I experienced the wildest
nature, and probably became a biologist by observing things and being out in nature all
the time. We had pretty much free run of the woods and fields. We had a stream that went
right by our – I call it a shack because my dad bought it from a couple of college kids for
$200, and you could probably throw darts at the wall and half of them would go through
the cracks on the outside – and he renovated that completely. My dad was quite a
handyman. He ended up building us a boat, a sail boat, and we explored – my brother and
I spent our childhood messing around in small boats.
[2:53]
BC:
You have one brother?
BG:
I have one brother who’s 18 months older than I am, still alive – living in eastern Ontario
actually, not far from where I built a home on an island.
BC:
And what was his name?
BG:
His name was John Stanley Gilbert.
BC:
Sounds like, did your parents do any other kind of outdoor activities with you other than
just going to the –
BG:
Not a whole lot. We didn’t have a lot of money. We went on summer trips when we
finally ended up getting a second-hand car in, I think about the mid-40s. Before that we
basically took buses everywhere. My brother and I went to school by bus. We went to our
cottage from, basically when the ice broke up until October, or so, or maybe September
when school started. And then we rented a house in the earlier years, a different house
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�every year. Then finally, things got a little bit better and we built another cottage. My dad
and I built a sunny-built cottage when I was in high school down in the St. Lawrence
River. I went to public high school, then actually university all in about the same 10
blocks, which is fairly unusual. We had a very good university, Queens University, in
Kingston, and I was the first one in my family to attend university – my direct family.
BC:
And were there any influential teachers from those early school years that you
remember?
BG:
Yeah. I guess there are a number. I particularly liked some of my science teachers, who
were very good teachers, and an English teacher gave me great respect for the English
language and we’re always taught to write as much as we could and write well. And then
when I went to college, university there in biology I was very fortunate to have a friend’s
father who was a professor of biology, and he got me a couple of jobs when I was in
college. One working on sea-land prey control for a summer up on Lake Superior, and
the second year I was a field biologist, if you like, although I didn’t have a biology
degree, on a sword-fishing boat, collecting biological data for the Fisheries Research
Board of Canada. If you wonder why I work on big carnivores, it’s because I started on
big fish!
BC:
So you started in Fisheries, but what was your main emphasis?
[5:35]
BG:
Well, I think I really wanted to be a Fisheries Biologist, but I think it was just simplistic
because I’d done a lot of fishing and seemed to like the science of fisheries biology. My
main professor and mentor, had just got his doctorate from Yale under G. [George ]
Evelyn Hutchinson. And he came back to Queens, and took a shine to me and me to him,
and I worked at the field station. He was a limnologist, he actually studied the chemistry
of bottom sediments – the muds and chlorophylls and pheophytins and complex
chemicals. And so I liked the idea of doing biology on lakes or something to do with fish.
But I switched completely out of that when I applied for graduate school at Duke
University, because my professor, Dr. Peter Klopfer specialty was bird behavior and
mammal behavior mostly. He had a herd of deer that he wanted me to do some studies
on, and that’s what I did my masters and PhD. So, that was a lucky break in many ways
because I really was very interested in behavior. I can remember in college, gravitating to
taking psychology courses because I was interested in animal behavior. And it was just
becoming a field of ecology at this time. People like W.C. (Warder Clyde) Allee, the
famous ecologist, was studying social behavior in all kinds of animals from fish up to
herd animals, and I guess I had some intuition that studying the behavior of animals could
be a career, and it was clearly a discipline at that stage. Dr. Peter Klopfer was one of the
leaders in the North American continent, so I was very fortunate to study behavior with
him, and I’ve never looked back in terms of studying behavior. That’s what I taught here
at Utah State most of my career.
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�[7:41]
BC:
And after you received your doctorate, where did you go from there?
BG:
That’s when I came to Utah. I saw an advertisement in Science magazine for a National
Science Foundation post-doc with Dr. Dietland Muller-Schwarze who was on staff here
in Fisheries and Wildlife, and was studying pronghorn antelope. He had earlier done his
doctoral work with the Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz in Austria, and Dietland was
an Austrian himself I believe, or a German. He came to Utah State on faculty and had
some money to have somebody study pronghorn in the field, and that sounded like a great
opportunity to me. I had been studying deer under enclosed conditions. We had a onemile perimeter fence with a herd of about 25 fallow deer, and I was going to study freeranging pronghorn in Yellowstone, particularly looking at how they use scent-marking in
territoriality, which I did study and published on. Dietland Muller-Schwarze was doing
experimental work with scent glands in deer and pronghorn. He’d come from one of the
UC campuses, maybe it was Davis – I forget where. But he’d looked at the glands and the
communication of the deer and was switching to pronghorn and had hand-raised
pronghorn out at Green Canyon station here. So that was a very lucky break. I spent two
summers and two years here, and then had to get a real job and went to Alberta looking
for either a wildlife position, or a university position.
BC:
What years were you --?
BG:
Oh that was – the post-doc was [19]‘70-71 I believe and I left at the end of ’71 and went
to Alberta for four years. I went to a fledgling campus that never did get built. It was
called Athabasca University; it’s currently an Open University format. I lasted there – I
wasn’t too happy because there was a bunch of people sitting around and I was supposed
to give lectures and write newspaper articles and have a course by newspaper, and I
wasn’t at all prepared to do that – I wasn’t very good at it, and I certainly wasn’t trained
at it. So my next job was as a vertebrate zoologist with the Department of Agriculture in
Alberta, looking at pests of problems. I started working with bears there because they
have a massive conflict with bears coming into bee yards doing hundreds of thousands of
dollars damage. The bee business, apiary business, honey business was worth about $10
million a year, and it was being devastated by black bears coming in and eating the bee
larvae and bee eggs and those sorts of things.
I worked two years with the Department of Agriculture, the provincial government’s
Vertebrate Pest Group and I was supposed be doing the research on any problem
vertebrate that affected agriculture. So I had to look at pocket gophers, I was looking at
some coyote killing of sheep, some bear killing of sheep, and then I decided to
concentrate on the bee-yard conflicts because it was such a massive problem and people
were killing bears willy-nilly all over the place. Approximately 1,000 bears a year were
being killed, mainly for control purposes, in some pretty horrid ways. So we started some
research to try and determine how we could keep bears out of bee yards – electric fences,
and I started experiments with taste aversion conditioning – where you put a chemical,
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�lithium chloride in, and try to make the bears sick without getting into too many details
about that.
But that was fun because that was a type of experimental management that really
appealed to me. The government was providing the money to help the beekeepers protect
their crops, and I was able to do an experimental test to see which one would really be
effective and efficient in keeping bears away from the bee yards without using a lethal
technique. That was reasonably successful. I quite enjoyed that and published on that -you’ll see that in my papers. Then the government decided to move the lab out to a very
small town out in the boonies.
My wife [Katherine Gilbert] and I had young children and we liked living in the bigger
city, so I applied for a job with Alberta Fish and Wildlife Division in an area that I had
become interested in because of my doctoral work. Are we okay? And that was on game
ranching, which was a new idea. Because I had done PhD on the effects of imprinting in
fallow deer and how the behavior of young deer could essentially tame them or
domesticate them within a couple of days’ contact with people, I thought that some
wildlife like moose and mule deer could be domesticated if it made sense. It’s pretty
much out of favor these days, but that was the early stages. I spent a couple of years
developing a field station and working on that. (I’m getting a little feedback – am I
talking too loud, or is it recording too loud?)
[Tape problems, begin again]
[Some discussion on the recording equipment; stop and start.]
[01:07]
BG:
We were just finishing off, I think with my position with game ranching, which lasted
until I saw a notice for a teaching position back here at Utah State. My wife and I both
had a very nice experience on my post-doc here. The faculty position that opened up was
the one that Dr. Allen Stokes had vacated because he retired a bit early. I responded to
the notice and I was told there were 100 applicants for this position, but I was short-listed
and they finally asked me if I wanted the position. That’s when I started my career in
August of 1976 – career of teaching at Utah State, in what was then the Fisheries and
Wildlife department.
BC:
What was Utah State like in 1976?
BG:
I don’t recall that it was a whole lot different than it is now, in the sense that we had an
active aquatic and fisheries group of people, like Bill Helm and John Neuhold was here. I
believe John Kadlec was department head when I came and he was a wetlands type. We
were well-represented, I think, across the board in both ecosystem and species
orientation. As I recall, Mike Wolfe was here, Fred Wagner was here. Fred Wagner had
been working on coyotes and desert ecosystems; Mike Wolfe was a large mammal
habitat person. It was a very interesting group of people. They were trying very hard to
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�have a scholarly approach to wildlife management and were encouraged to publish in
first rate journals and attend conferences, etc. There was a lot of emphasis, about 50% of
my contract was for research, and 50% for teaching, and that was fairly traditional.
[3:21]
The one thing that I liked about the department here was the freedom to do field research.
I considered teaching “load” as they call it, to be very light. I enjoyed that because I put a
lot of effort into my teaching and took it quite seriously, I think. It was an opportunity,
one of the reasons I left government wildlife work was to be able to be on committees of
a variety of projects of all kinds of animal species, and that allowed me to bring my
behavioral interests and other interests to bear on them without being directly involved in
the research myself.
I had been doing pronghorn and deer work, and when I came here I had some experience
with the Yellowstone people, and grizzly bears and black bears were a bit of a focus.
Since I’d worked on black bears in Alberta, problem wildlife, I thought “well I’ll go talk
to people at Yellowstone; they seem to have a conflict between grizzly bears and back
country people.” They’d had a couple of nasty accidents and they had a lot of traffic.
Backpacking was very popular, as you remember, in the mid-70s, and there were a fair
number of outfitters going through the park that were going through a high-quality
grizzly bear habitat. They weren’t particularly, as I recall, the park wasn’t particularly
sanguine about how they were going to manage this contact between bears and people.
So I had a small contract to look at bear-human interactions, and took on a student from
the southeast, Bruce Hastings, who was going to work on his masters on human-grizzly
interactions in Yellowstone. We got a little bit of funding from the Park Service, and set
out in early June, I think it was, to Yellowstone, after I’d finished my lecturing. We went
to various places that people told us there were aggregations of grizzlies. My idea was to
help Bruce get setup in some high place and observe grizzly bears as people came along
trails: see what the bears did – did they approach them? Did they leave them? Did they
just abandon the whole valley? Those sorts of things.
[6:01]
We paddled the full length of Yellowstone Lake to go down the south mountain arm and
see whether there was some potential there. Either enough bears or open enough habitat
that we could observe them. That didn’t turn out to be a very good place. There were bear
tracks, but it was a logistically hard place to work, and you couldn’t be guaranteed that
you would see very many bears and the people were relatively negligible.
The next place we went was in the upper Gallatin drainage that we accessed by an Indian
Creek trail in the northwest part of the park. We walked 10 miles in on June the 26th and
camped at Bighorn Pass, very near a trail. There was some bear sign in the area and I can
remember while setting up our little tents, our one tent we had I guess, near a cliff – I
could imagine jumping over this little cliff if a bear was going to come along in middle of
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�the night. I had put up a whole wall of shrubs so if a bear came messing around our tent
we’d hear him scratching around through these broken pieces of wood and snags and that
sort of thing. As it turned out in the morning, we got up at 6 o’clock, and before we’d had
anything to eat I was out there looking over this upper Gallatin, we could see Gallatin
Lake – the upper end of the watershed, and we could see grizzlies in the basin there. Elk
were moving up the far slope, but we were so far we really couldn’t tell what was going
on, and I guess I’d have to say I was a little impatient.
The long and the short of it was we’d had a couple of hours of observation, took notes,
which is in my field book that you’ll see. Then I suggested to Bruce that we take a long
detour down the valley and up behind these bears and come up about 9,000 feet and be
observing them on that side of the valley and be looking down at them. That’s where I
ran into what I think was a female grizzly, about 10:30-11:00 in the morning. We’d hiked
up this Spur Ridge, off Crow Foot Ridge – there was a little spur that came westerly –
and as I came over the top of that ridge Bruce had stopped to relieve himself down the
trail a bit and I told him that I would go ahead. I went up somewhat rapidly over the top
of the mountain ridge so that the elk and whatever wouldn’t see me standing up there on
the skyline. I think this bear had seen me coming, I hadn’t seen it. I suspect it thought I
was attacking it. I was moving fast and then I dropped down – all of which to a bear
means I’m launching myself at it. I looked up and this ferocious, big grizzly was coming
at me about, seemed like 50 feet away. Just your basic nightmare: clawing and growling
at the top of its voice, ears laid back in a full-out attack. I took one look at this and turned
on my heel and ran the other way.
[9:32]
You can of course do all kinds of analysis after the fact on these things. There weren’t
really any instructions that anybody that worked with bears had to tell you about how to
deal with bears, and this was the first grizzly bear I’d ever come close to at all. So I was
totally unprepared. The worst part of it being that the bear had seen me and launched on
me before I’d seen it, so I didn’t even have a micro-second to get the wits to figure out a
strategy. As I was moving away, it knocked me down and bit the back of my head and
basically tore my scalp off from the back, trying to bite through my skull. I rolled over
with the pain of that and tried to fight it off my head, but then it bit the side of my face
off and I lost an eye and my cheekbone, etc. After that I was pretty much – I wasn’t
unconscious, but I had been beaten up enough that I was immobile, I guess you’d say,
and essentially bleeding to death. Bruce came along and saw this object standing where
I’d been, or might have been and he let out a couple of vocalizations and for whatever
reason the bear got off me and walked away. I interpret that the bear might’ve thought
there was either a pack of us, or it had neutralized me and it wasn’t going to deal with any
other intrusions. It may have had a cub down the mountain a bit. A biologist told me later
that they saw bloody footprints going back off the mountain. The rest of the day was a
rescue operation getting me back to a hospital.
Luckily, we had a Motorola hand-held radio. One of the Park Service, they’d given us
one for our backcountry work. I’ll foreshorten this part, but we were able to get a
helicopter, which came in and they radioed – because the seriousness of my accident –
they had a bunch of smokejumpers and medical packages dropped by parachute onto the
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�mountain. About four of those guys risked injury to come down and patch me up. They
took me to Lake Hospital, and then to West Yellowstone, and then to Salt Lake City.
Luckily, at Lake Hospital there were four surgeons that had rotated from the University
of Utah Medical Center, and they’d been trained trauma surgeons. So they probably did a
lot of stuff with hunks of skin that were falling off my face to both save the tissue, and
save my life. Of course by the time I was in the clinic they could give me blood
substitutes.
Somewhere in my collection I have a bunch of pictures of the rescue, because the
helicopter pilot had nothing to do while the EMT fellows were patching me up. So he
used the rest of my film to document the rescue, which it was pretty interesting. Now I
can show my students, and have on occasion, I don’t like to over-emphasize it. The Park
Service was using those slides for their training films. Apparently it was a very successful
rescue. In fact, Mary Marr, who was directing our project, had said it was probably the
most faultless rescue that they had done. I did read in some papers after that, that they’d
had an evaluation procedure and realized that they should give people that are new to the
park a little bit better training in dealing with back country issues like bears. Those sort of
things are always stated. I had no malice toward either the bear or to the Park Service. I
didn’t even think of lawsuits or anything like that, as some people do, because I realized
I’d tripped on the bear and the bear was just doing what grizzlies do. I was just paying the
consequence.
So after about 14 operations and some skin transplants from various parts of my body, I
was back on campus in September. I spent my summer holidays in the hospital! “What
did you do last summer?” “Oh, I had plastic surgery, how about you?!” [Laughing.] But it
was a very unfortunate accident. I was about as close to dying as you can come. I suspect
I realized that I was probably the first person in North American that had been savaged so
by the teeth of a bear and had lived. Lots of trappers had been grabbed by bears, but if
you don’t die from loss of blood, you die from infection within about three or four days
after that. I almost died of infection. They pumped me so full of antibiotics that one of the
doctors said they might deafen me, but they had to stop these infections. My temperature
was going up 104, 105 every afternoon as my body had fought off all the garbage that
comes out of a bear’s mouth. They found -- one of the infectious diseases team guys told
me they found four species of proteus bacteria, which I don’t really know what they are,
but I assume they come out of earth where bears dig and eat roots and things like that.
They’d never seen them before so they really didn’t know what to hit them with, so they
hit them with everything they had. Mostly keflics, keflin kinds of drugs and I became
allergic to those, so I still can’t take those kind of antibiotics. But it was by and large
successful.
[15:25]
Strange to say, I went back to study bears shortly thereafter. I got a notice of a contract in
Katmai [National Park]. I should say Bruce Hastings immediately went off – they found
an opportunity to study bears and people in Yosemite Park, and he did a successful
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�masters looking at black bears coming in the campgrounds in Yosemite Park. So we were
able to rescue his thesis in another park.
BC:
Do you think the bad event changed your outlook on your science or anything like that?
BG:
You know, I don’t recall it changing the questions I was asking. When the Katmai
opportunity came along, I was writing a paper – sort of the synthesis of human-bear
interactions – and then I realized really I didn’t know that much; nobody did. We needed
to do more research. So I quit writing and started a research proposal to look at humans
and bears on a salmon stream and the response of bears, focusing on two questions. Are
there too many people on Brooks River, and are they keeping bears off the river and
therefore the salmon? The second question was: are people getting so close there is going
to be a serious injury and the park would be responsible for injuries to people? So that’s
essentially what we looked at.
In Alaska, as you might know, people tend to carry their Yellowstone and Glacier
National Park experience and they can’t quite believe that people can get as close as they
do to Alaskan bears. For whatever reason, bears on salmon streams seem to be much
more tolerant and habituate readily to people. They essentially ignore people, and they
are so focused on the salmon. Now it could be that they’re not as hungry as mountain
bears, or they’re not as aggressive because they don’t have to be as territorial about their
food. This is an area that really needs some research, I’m just speculating on possible
causes. They might be almost speciating as a more social bear, as opposed to these more
aggressive, territorial bears, as I would view them, in Yellowstone.
The other unknown in bear behavior in Yellowstone is the degree to which they’ve been
handled and shot at, that they may really have a serious dislike for humans. When you
capture a bear in snares or covert traps, they get very upset and they smell humans since
humans come along and dart them – and that’s a form of animal abuse, because you need
to capture the animal and deal with it. The bear remembers that sort of thing. Whether
they try to take it out on people, or react, they might have a short fuse when you or I are
going down a trail in Yellowstone, and rush us before we get a chance to capture them. I
don’t what goes through a bear’s mind of course. I suspect that the “no-effect”
hypothesis is wrong. There’s got be some influence of that kind of capture. I know the
bear that, if you like, counter-attacked me -- because in a way I attacked it first – I think it
was a defensive attack back on me. It might have been captured in the past, who knows?
You don’t know the history of these animals. So it might have been primed, either
because it was a female and threatened by other male bears, or it had been captured. We
just have no idea. I was too close to it, so it wasn’t surprising that it caught me and
savaged me a bit.
BC:
Did you do more work for Yellowstone after that?
BG:
I never had any kinds of contracts to do bear work. I was, not long after that, asked to be
on the blue ribbon panel of biologists to address the question of closures for fly fishing on
some of the streams in Yellowstone Lake. They invited four or five of us. Fred Lindsay
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�from Utah State was one of them, and I think he was the one that asked me if I would be
a member to look at the effectiveness of these closures, both from the point of view of
safety, and also to let the bears get access to the spawning cutthroat trout that go up all
the streams, all the tributaries of Yellowstone Lake. I never, at that time grizzly
management was so political and they had a team – the Inter-agency Grizzly Bear Study
Team – was doing research in the park. I think two things were happening. They had
research underway and they were capturing the bears, and they didn’t want anybody else
outside of a ring of biologists, if you’d like, to be involved in grizzly studies. It was too
political. It would have been a great time to continue some behavioral work because you
have all these marked animals around, so individual identification would have been a
great thing to do at the time.
[20:54]
My subsequent work focused on salmon streams. It is a great place to study behavior, as
you know, because the bears are coming day after day and you can get to know 30 or 40
bears. You keep identification – photographs and sketches, and you mark where the scars
are and which ears are torn and which aren’t. You can with 12 hour day observations
with the same bears coming back, even identify them by their modus operandi and how
they capture fish and where they capture them. So I had about, I think three students at
Katmai who did work. It was a great place to do behavioral observations for the reasons I
just stated.
BC:
How long did that project go for?
BG:
It started, I believe in the fall of ’83 I went up and did a reconnaissance visit late in the
season to see what was needed and what could be done. Then over the winter I
interviewed students to do the work. Ann Braaten was the first master’s student. She did
her masters degree and then I had two other students. Tamara Olsen, who is managing
now, and Scott Fipkin started but he never completed – he almost completed his master’s
work. It was all related to bear habituation rates and impacts of numbers of people on
bear behavior. That sort of thing.
[22:30]
BC:
You mentioned political nature of grizzly bears. What are some of that – have you seen
changes in how the federal government’s dealt with that over the years?
BG:
Yeah. You know the big questions were whether the bears were in a steep decline. You
may remember that John and Frank Craighead had started their pioneering work with
radio-collared bears in the park. About that time a new superintendent came in and the
park went to what they called a “management natural population regulation” as the way
that the animals – the elk, the deer, and the bears would be dealt with, which was pretty
much a hands-off sort of thing. An international study team led by Dr. Ian McTaggartCowan at UBC looked at all the data to see whether there was a threat to the population
and they recommended an independent study team. As it turned out, Richard Knight was
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�chosen and he was an insider, if you like, a federal government researcher, former
university professor, who took on all the grizzly work. The question was, “Are the bears
going downhill? How many of them are being killed?” When they close the dump – and I
don’t want to get too detailed here – but the issue between the Craigheads and Glen Cole
was “what should be done when you close the dump?”
The Craigheads believed from their long experience that if you close the dumps, the
various dumps to grizzly bears, they will revert to the campgrounds because that’s where
the most similar food is going to be. They don’t know what the natural foods are. Glen
Cole, and I had talked to Glen Cole about this and he had actually asked me whether I
thought the bears should be cutoff cold turkey from the dumps or whether the dumps
should be phased out slowly. I made the mistake of saying, “if you want to end the
problem I would recommend closing the dumps precipitously.” I think I was in error
about that because I didn’t think about the fact that these grizzlies were totally reliant, at
least the dump bears were reliant on that garbage. When they were prohibited from
getting garbage they had no idea where the other foods were. They couldn’t go find fish,
they wouldn’t find Whitebark pine seeds, all the various grizzly foods. They wouldn’t
know where the best berry bushes were because they had never accessed them in the
summer. They basically were a culture of bears that were living on garbage dumps. So,
unbeknownst to anyone, the Park Service dealt with these, if you like, marauding bears
but bad choice of word because they were just coming to the fresh garbage in people’s
coolers instead of the stale garbage which was in the garbage dumps. It was the same
food to them – this is my summary or interpretation, anyway. They came in fairly large
numbers. We learned subsequently, it wasn’t until the ‘80s, that over 220 grizzly bears
had been killed within about a three year period. I think in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. I
think it was ’69, ’70, ’71, but don’t hold me to that.
So here was a major problem. Two sides with different hypotheses and the Park Service
never admitted that their hypothesis was wrong! Now you and I, maybe in the ivory
tower, could sit here and say, “Well what should have been done?” We might have said,
“Well, we don’t have the knowledge, let’s raise these two hypotheses and test what the
bears are actually doing.” The bears would tell us, we could put a case of beer on it to
make it serious about who’s right and who’s wrong, and find out that in fact the bears
were coming into the campgrounds. Instead of shooting them they could’ve done
something else – taken road kills and try to lure them away from campgrounds, or even
feed them until they get back on finding some new foods. What happened was that the
arguments were so contentious and it was going up the federal chain and was a major
embarrassment for the Park Service. Everybody had an opinion, of course. The park got
so defensive that they told the Craigheads that anything that they said to the press and
anything they published had to be run through the park superintendent. Well, the reaction
as I understand it by the Craigheads, was “Hell no, we won’t go that route, so we’re out
of here. We can’t do research if we can’t talk about what we find.” And so the schism
between the two parties was complete at that time.
[28:05]
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�The inter-agency grizzly bear came in, the Park Service realized, along with other
agencies (Forest Service, and whatever else) that were in that Yellowstone ecosystem,
that they needed to know how many bears were there. So they started, I guess a three
decade study, of collaring bears and doing population dynamic analysis. In other words,
how many bears are there and what’s the trend? Are they going up, are they going down?
The Craigheads at the time had been very adamant and had population models that
showed the bears were on their way to extinction if mortality rates were continuing on.
[28:50]
So you can see from this that it wasn’t a place for somebody to come in and do some
research. They were censoring people, they were refusing – Glacier has never allowed
bears to be collared there; Yellowstone was because of political emphasis on losing the
bears. A lot of people were very upset around the nation that the Park Service not only
was killing bears, but they weren’t recording. None of this data showed up. They
basically killed them and buried them. If you talk, I found at least one ranger who told me
that he really didn’t want to talk about it to me, but he admitted that they had shot bears
in middle of the night and basically dragged them over and threw them off cliffs and
things like that, so nobody could discover them. He had heard rumors that people had
found piles of bears here, but there was never any accounting. It was really a rather sordid
example of bad wildlife management on which I would say the political aspects of it and
censorship overcame the need to do good studies and find out what was really going on. I
was actually quite happy not to be in the middle of that sort of thing! It wouldn’t be the
place you would want to take graduate students and have somebody looking over your
shoulder or refusing to let you do certain sort of things. We could have done behavioral
studies, but it would have been in the context in with the confounding of all these other
handling procedures. I think one of the reasons that Glen Cole once said to me, he said,
“nobody on earth would have been allowed to come in and do research right now.” He
said, “It’s too hot, it’s too political.”
But I think what the sub-text was on that was that we got a lot of rangers that are shooting
bears and we don’t want anybody to be looking at this, researchers from Utah State or
anybody else. So they closed down research, and tried to “manage” if you like, but they
managed by shooting bears because they were risky. They were risky because the Park
Service had figured they’d go back into the woods and feed on grizzly foods, and they
didn’t do anything of the kind! They came to where the people were and were in their
face. You can’t let grizzly bear moms with two cubs walk along the series of tents
sniffing whose got the chocolate bars, you know? It was a black eye for wildlife
management, actually, during that period, and especially for Yellowstone. That’s the
short history anyway!
[31:36]
BC:
Would you say that the wildlife management in federal agencies has become more
politicized in recent years, or has it gotten better?
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�BG:
That’s a good question. I think for a while it was getting better because there seemed to
be evidence that bears were increasing. I think now, people are estimating 500, 600 bears
in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. But it’s still very contentious because it took a
long while to get a good recovery plan, but there weren’t enough positive things – like
closing roads in National Forest lands around Yellowstone. There was nothing artificial
done to improve the food sources for the bears. In the ‘80s and ‘90s it became clear that
some of the major foods – and this is contentious right now, and the Natural Resources
Defense Fund is one of the leaders in trying to stop the b-listing of the grizzly bear. It has
been b-listed, as you know, but they were against that and filed lawsuits because it
appeared that with the loss of the Whitebark pine trees, through both rusts and beetle
attacks, they were going to die – that food would be gone. The illegal introduction of lake
trout in the Yellowstone Lake was decimating the Yellowstone cutthroat trout, the native
cutthroat trout – so that was a concern and that was a major food for at least some bears
that were feeding on trout in the streams.
The elk were in somewhat of a decline, so people were worried about that. One segment
bears were feeding on moths along the Absaroka on the east side in scree fields. This
habit of bears to go up there and turn over and eat millions of insects was being driven by
a pest in agricultural crops, and there was no guarantee that the spring wouldn’t get rid of
them and they would no longer be in the mountains. If you look at it there were at least
four foods, the Whitebark pine being the most important energy source for bears – it
supported more bears and more calories than any other food, which is strange if you think
about the size of a grizzly bear and the fact that it’s eating little tiny seeds. But the seeds
were being brought together by the squirrels in middens and the bears could very
effectively raid those and get a lot of calories. The Whitebark pine seeds are extremely
rich in all the nutrients that a bear could need, especially fat.
[34:30]
Ron Laner a former professor of forestry and I brought some money together and did an
analysis of Whitebark pine seeds. We found that they had all essential amino acids, they
were 52% fat. If you and I were going on an extended camping trip and could only take
one food, taking pine seeds would be a great food because we would survive well on
them alone, as do Clark’s Nutcrackers and some other species too.
To get back to the threats, what this prediction of both global climate disruption, or
global warming, and the loss of these other foods, some of the advocacy groups, the
wildlife grizzly advocacy groups felt it was not the time to take the protection away from
the bear. They were concerned about the roads. The mortality rates remained relatively
and nobody denies that. I think the numbers of bears have gone up. As you and I have
gone to Yellowstone the last two or three weeks, it’s now possible to be almost
guaranteed of seeing grizzly bear if you go to the right place. They’ve spread out more,
they’re much more visible, they’re eating carcasses, especially in the springtime like
now. It isn’t clear to me, or I think to any other scientist that looks at the data that
necessarily the extent of the range, the increase in the range, doesn’t mean that there are
more bears. It may mean that they are being distributed in a different way. Those
questions need answers.
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�But biologists, to be fair to them, would say that the evidence is pretty clear that the
numbers are up, and I would agree with them there. But are they up enough to have no
threats to the genetic makeup of the bears, Yellowstone ecosystem is isolated from all of
the other areas. The conservation biologists that are interested in bear survival would like
to see enough bears in Yellowstone that they would start moving up to these other areas,
like into Idaho, and connect eventually up through Glacier, and the reverse. So there
would be more exchange. I think it’s more now an argument about not only do we need
the minimum number to determine that they’re not threatened, but currently the set point,
if you like, or the goal for grizzlies should be that they are recovered when their densities
like they might have been in historical times (like through the 1700 and 1800s). We have
a bit of an argument now between the minimalists, if you like, that are happy enough to
have a minimum viable population (which is a jargon term) and therefore, that represents
the grizzly in that ecosystem; versus the other people, who are I think more biologically
oriented, who say, “No we want them there, if they’re recovered they’re there in large
enough numbers feeding on natural foods.”
[37:44]
The whole sub-text of the Yellowstone system is that it’s high elevation, very cold most
of the year, so it’s really not North America’s best it’s only the last of what’s left. So they
will continue to be threatened unless there are numbers that occupy some of the lowland
areas and maybe go out into the streams, or the watersheds, but if you start going down
the Yellowstone you run into mega-development pretty quickly, as you do in Paradise
Valley. It’s cattle country, it’s condominiums, it’s millionaire’s ranches and all those
sorts of things. If Yellowstone had been designed ecologically, it would have included a
lot more winter range to the north, as you know, around Gardiner [Montana] and going
up toward Livingston [Montana], much of that area and up the Bear River – Bear Gulch
to Jardine and some of those areas up above the Lamar [Wyoming] to the north and the
Bear Tooth or Absaroka Range.
A lot of that is winter range for elk and it would also be winter range for bears. They
would be going up there to feed on elk. But that wasn’t included so we have much more
of a conflict zone. Again, as you are aware, the bison are a source of conflict because of
the so-called Brusolosis problem, which isn’t a problem. [Brucellosis is an infectious
disease caused by contact with animals carrying bacteria called Brucella.] The politics
drive that. They killed 1600 bison this winter, which inflamed a lot of people because it’s
not biologically necessary. Some of these historical problems of not having a complete
ecosystem are still visiting the wildlife and their survival in Yellowstone.
BC:
Sort of makes me curious, how do you prepare a young scientist to learn the scientific
method and everything, but then they go to work for these agencies or whatever, to
navigate all the politics?
BG:
Yeah, well that’s another great question. With my students, I like to give them a wellcircumscribed question or hypothesis to develop and keep them away from the politics, at
least during their study, and understand what the process of good science is. So if I can
get them to piggy-back, even if I’ve taken some money to do a management study, I get
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�them to own another part of the research that’s more academic, if you like, and by that I
mean just good science about the animal or animal-human interaction. Then they pick up,
I don’t spend a lot time telling them, but they pick up the concept or reality that the
science doesn’t drive the decision-making. So you have the science, then you have the
management on top of it, and then what drives the management is often the politics of
greed, or the politics of value differentials, or the politics of animal protection, livestock
protection, people’s fear of grizzlies, all these sorts of things. That’s the battle ground,
and I don’t know that you can teach much about it. I mean you can teach good political
science, you can teach people to know how to study human attitudes. I guess I’m a bit of
a purist and I try to guide the students to do the best science and don’t become
anthropocentric.
In other words, don’t try to work toward a world where people get everything they want
and the animals take the hindermost. My view is that if my students don’t understand the
vast ecology and the most complex interaction between animals and people and the
ecosystems that support us all, we’ll lose our way. Get the science right, as with spotted
owls, or with sage grouse or whatever, find the causes and I tell them to hopefully to have
the courage without being fired to call a spade a spade. If the sheep are wiping out the
habitat for the sage grouse, which I believe they are, the livestock, they have to come up
with that. They can’t cover it over and call it bad range management, or historical
problems, or something like that. If you’re going to save the owl, or as we learned with
Clinton administration, save the sage grouse you have to back it up with some of the
impacts. It’s a tough world for ecologists because they keep asking for things that seem to
be idealistic. The public, in my view, is asking people like me, who get paid by them in
the state of Utah, to come up with ways to save some of these animals because we’ve
obliterated them in 99% of the landscape.
[42:46]
If you look at grizzly bears, or wolverines or wolves, and I don’t know how a person
could say, “Well, there’s no room for wolves, we need all that land.” Well that means
you’re basically on your way to turning North American into a great big sprawling
metropolis, with no wilderness left. I don’t think anybody wants that. But if you don’t
have some goals and visions, that’s what you end up with. So it comes back in a lot of
ways to too many people in too many places wanting to have a lifestyle. But we’ll save
that soapbox for another day. [Laughing]
BC:
A couple of questions, because projects sort of couched a little bit around Logan Canyon.
Did you do any research at all in Logan Canyon?
BG:
You know I never have done anything with students. Most of my work has been outside
of Utah. I have never had contracts with the Division of Wildlife Resources. When they
started bear work they went to BYU, and I don’t know if that was personal connections.
It rather angered me for a while that we were the state land-grant university and it was
state money and it was going to a private university. I sense that I am a little bit too much
of an independent radical and I wouldn’t say what they wanted me to say or necessarily
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�do it the way they wanted it to do, so I feel like I was left out – which suited me fine. I
once said to somebody, “I think we in Utah at the university should go to Idaho and do
the studies, and the people from the Idaho universities should come to Utah!” [Laughing]
And then we wouldn’t run afoul of our legislators.
Because, Brad, you know, it doesn’t take much – you can find some literature in your
archives where the wool growers and the cattlemen have threatened this college that
we’re sitting in here. I’ve seen statements to the effect that “gee, we see that you guys
have asked for a budget for a new building. Well, if you think you’re going to get a new
building and still keep that guy Bern [Bernard] Shanks, who’s taken on the sagebrush
rebellion…” They’re basically saying “Fire that sucker or you won’t get your building.”
Bern Shanks did not get tenure, and nobody’s ever explained why it was. He was an
excellent teacher and he’s won awards for being a teacher. Whether or not the dean gave
him the door or not, we got a lot of political pressure because of positions and defense of
public land – it was all a public land issue. It’s not easy trying to represent wild lands.
[See also: USU University Archives: 3.1/12-2: Box 11 fd.8: Sagebrush Rebellion]
You know the status that wilderness has. People on the right side of things, the rightwingers, view it as an elite useless aspect of land. In fact, I read something the other day
from a Montana writer, Bill Schneider, said that wilderness is more a multiple-use than
any other use. Mining and cattle are all single-uses that are providing profits for private
entities, using public lands. So, you can get into that whole argument too.
BC:
Because you’ve had experience in Canada and the United States does it differ between
the two countries?
BG:
It differs a lot, yeah. I very much favor the American government in terms of the laws.
When you look at the Endangered Species Act, which was passed during Richard
Nixon’s term, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act were re-established I think, and NEPA
came in under those terms. Those are very powerful legal tools that can be used to meet
the vision that the legislators, federal legislators – senators, congressman – put forward
that brought those bills forward. And in contrast, in Canada, it’s very much a
discretionary function and the public doesn’t have strong laws. There is no Endangered
Species Act in Canada. People have been pushing for it, but it’s never occurred. And
when they did get one in Ontario, they had to fight to get things like critical habitat. If an
animal without a habitat to survive in is not a favorable outcome.
[47:29]
U.S. set some precedents, I think, worldwide in the kinds of laws that they’ve come up
with. Mind you, the industrial might in this country is tearing up a lot of land right now
for oil and gas development; whether those laws are going to stand by us – who knows?
But we have the tools; all we lack is the will to continue to use them. I think the people
are getting behind groups like Environmental Defense and NRDC [Natural Resources
Defense Council]. It’s an unfortunate reality that the public has to spend their money to
get the advocacy groups – the big groups like NRDC – to sue people like EPA which are
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�being paid to protect our resources, but aren’t doing it because of political pressures. We
have the government in Washington, as you know, that’s dominated by corporate
lobbyists – I don’t know there are some 20,000 lobbyists trying to get what they want
from our legislators! [Laughing] This is a poor man’s democracy in my view! It’s not the
reason I’m moving to Canada. I guess maybe I’m looking for a challenge going to
Canada and fighting. It’s pretty much the same in both places. The United States has a lot
of well-educated people and has very good ecological and fish and wildlife universities.
That’s why so many Canadians come to colleges in natural resources down here. I think
both to go to school and to teach.
BC:
What’s the future of the natural resources profession – I know in the ‘70s it seemed like it
kind of boomed and it dipped, and is it coming back or is it --?
BG:
That’s a tough one. I guess I’m an optimist to say that I see resurgence in the future.
Partly because the corporate dominance is getting through to people in a very large way,
including Republicans that really dislike giveaways to rich corporations. And I think the
global climate disturbance is so all-encompassing that people are seriously threatened by
the whole thing. And there are tons of other indicators, like the decline of fisheries
around the world, we’re losing all our large pelagic or open-ocean fish like the blue
marlin, white marlin, sail fin, the tunas – the big tunas, swordfish. These are all on their
way to extinction and to me that is quite tragic. I worked on swordfishing boats when I
was an undergraduate in 1959, as I mentioned, and we were getting fish that weighed 600
and 700 pounds. You’ll never see those again. They’re just not allowed to grow that
large, where they catch them around the 40 to 60 pound range. That is a recipe for
extinction. People like Carl Safina in Long Island – he’s got a successful advocacy group
for marine species and trying very hard to save them before they disappear because once
gone, it’s gone forever.
But I’m hopeful. I think if we get a change in government and we can get away from the
rabid materialism in this country we might have a chance. It’s all driven by oil and gas
and it’s kind of scary. It makes you want to buy a bicycle! [Laughing]
[51:06]
BC:
Well I’ll kind of maybe end up for today’s session and I always like to ask if you
could’ve changed anything about your life would you have?
BG:
I think I would’ve taken on and done research in more areas. I look back and I sense that
I was a little too reticent, lacking courage to tackle some questions that as I look back I
was right, but I didn’t have the confidence. It’s a strange thing to say, but I guess it’s part
of my personality that I edge my way into these things to see whether there’s enough
success going to be there, and I should’ve just said, “hell with it, I’ll take a chance!”
Because research, when it’s done right is new knowledge and you have to be willing to
fail. You have these mental images, which we call “ideas” about what could be. And I’ve
had a couple of instances where I had a hunch and I never followed it up and it turned out
I was right but I was left behind because somebody else did follow up. I think it’s maybe
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�a lesson when you’re working with students to follow your hunches and take some
chances. There isn’t much about my career, if anything, I would’ve changed. I look back
and feel like I’ve experienced the greatest parts of North American and East Africa and
the Caribbean that I’ve gone to with, I’ve had really great students who have been
enthusiastic, both at the undergraduate and graduate level. And, how could you not, if
you love wilderness and love the outdoors and you’re a bio-philiac as E.O. Wilson says
people that love animals. I’ve worked with dolphins; I’ve worked with swordfish like
I’ve said, pronghorn, deer, rhinoceros, elephant seals, bears – polar bears, black bears.
It’s been a great life.
BC:
Alright. One more question: do you have any spiritual connection to the natural world?
[53:39]
BG:
Only, I guess in a sense of wonder. I don’t have any religious connection. I don’t feel like
I’m doing God’s work on earth saving critters. I’m actually quite a rabid atheist when it
gets down to it because I think organized religions do a lot of mischief and are very
misguided. As I said to someone, “why would carry ideas, Paleolithic ideas in the 20th
century? Why don’t we invent a couple of new religions that are more in tune with
ecological thinking?” But I don’t think I’ll start a new religion.
But I do, I’ve got to admit I have a sense, I think from childhood, and maybe we all do
this, I’m not peculiar, that there is a certain sacredness in our respect to the natural world.
And we tear it apart rather willy-nilly for very mediocre reasons, I think. I think it’s very
easy for us to get carried away with comfort, oh, materialistic things: cars that are too big
and houses that are too big and appetites that are too big – all of which lead us downhill.
Someone I was reading the other day said that if we could convert to more poetry and art
and spirituality and history, and forget so much the comforts and add-ons, we would
probably have a richer mental life. I guess I buy in – I don’t guess, I know I do – I buy in
with the Bob Marshalls of this world in terms of wanting to save some wilderness. A lot
of people love dinosaurs, and maybe they’d like to have a land with dinosaurs, but our
grizzly bears and our big fish are our dinosaurs and we ought to save them so people in
the future – whether they’re our grandchildren or just other folks can have some of these
experiences as well.
BC:
That’s great. Anything else you would like to add?
BG:
I think I’ve already talked too much!
BC:
Alright.
BG:
I appreciate the opportunity.
BC:
That’s great.
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Barrie Gilbert interview, 21 May 2008, and transcription
Description
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The interview contains a brief description of Barrie Gilbert's childhood and details of his schooling and subsequent career in wildlife management. It includes his story of being attacked by a grizzly bear, his attitudes on wildlife management in both the U.S. and Canada, and the political pressures he and others face(d) in doing research in wildlife management and in management policies.
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Gilbert, Barrie K., 1937-
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Cole, Bradford R.
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Gilbert, Barrie K., 1937---Interviews
Gilbert, Barrie K., 1937---Childhood and youth
Utah State University. Dept. of Natural Resources--Faculty--Interviews
Kingston (Ont. : Township)
Professional education--Ontario--Kingston (Township)
Animal behavior--Study and teaching
Animal behavior--Research
Yellowstone National Park
Human-bear encounters--Research
Bear attacks--Yellowstone National Park
Katmai National Park and Preserve (Alaska)--Research
Bear hunting
Wildlife management
Bears--Research--Yellowstone National Park
Ecology
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Kingston (Ontario)
Ontario Lake (New York)
Yellowstone National Park
Katmai National Park and Preserve (Alaska)
Alaska
United States
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999
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2000-2009
21st century
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eng
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 2 Fd. 6
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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http://highway89.org/files/original/af0b4b9dd8255af3f93c57ffd3df60ab.mp3
d32e0735f42440d5765054240e9252dd
http://highway89.org/files/original/fe0d1ef3210c677f2d61ca7e5cac51c6.pdf
c4cce95a61e96daf719459ad11e244a4
PDF Text
Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Thadis Box
Place of Interview: Mountain West Center for Regional Studies, USU
Date of Interview: 21 March 2008
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Elaine Thatcher
Elaine Thatcher
Recording Equipment:
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Marantz PMD660 Digital Recorder
Power Player Transcription Software:
Executive Communication Systems
Glenda Nesbit
Elaine Thatcher; Randy Williams (17 March 2011)
Brief Description of Contents: Short demonstration interview at which several people
were present, including Thad Box, Elaine Thatcher, Brad Cole, Randy Williams, Barbara
Middleton, Bob Parson and Glenda Nesbit. The interview covers Box’s early years and
education, including going to college on the GI bill and an epiphany he had after high
school that directed his course of study from engineering to agriculture (ranching) related
land use management.
Reference:
ET = Elaine Thatcher (Director, Mountain West Center for
Regional Studies
BP = Bob Parson (Interviewer; USU University Archivist)
RW = Randy Williams (Interviewer; USU Folklore Curator)
BC = Brad Cole (Interviewer; Associate Dean, USU Libraries)
TB = Thad Box
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and
stops in conversations are not included in transcript. All additions to transcript are noted
with brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
ET:
Okay, you hit, oops, I hit pause out of habit.
Okay Thad. I’m with Thad Box. This is Elaine Thatcher and we are at the Mountain
West Center for Regional Studies at Utah State University. It is March 21, 2008.
And we are doing the first installment of an interview regarding land use and
policy. Thad, would you say your whole name for me.
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�TB:
My name is Thadis Wayne Box.
ET:
Thaddeus?
TB:
Thadis. T H A D I S
ET:
Oh.
TB:
I don’t think my mother knew how to spell.
ET:
(laughter) Okay. When were you born?
TB:
I was born 9 May 1929.
ET:
Where?
TB:
On the banks of the Little Llano River in Central Texas.
ET:
Is that where you grew up?
TB:
I grew up there in Burnet and Llano counties; two adjoining counties in the hill
country in Texas.
ET:
That’s a beautiful part of Texas. Now I’m watching the meter – the meter is on the
front that tells whether it’s too loud or too soft. So I’m keeping an eye on that as we
go. Well, so how long did you live in Texas?
TB:
Oh I lived there; I guess I left in 194-, no 1959 when I came here. So I lived there,
discounting the time I spent in the army. I was there from 1929 to 1959.
ET:
Wow. Okay. So its home.
TB:
its home.
ET:
Yeah
TB:
Well. Yeah. Cache Valley is also home.
ET:
So then you came here in 1959.
TB:
I came here in 1959 and I stayed here for three years until I took a job back down in
Texas at Texas Tech, starting a Range Department there in directing the Arid Land
Center. And then I came back here in 1970 as Dean. Retired here in 1989 after 20
years as Dean roughly, and then went to New Mexico State for an endowed chair
down there. And then came back here after I retired the second time from New
Mexico State; in 1996 when we came back.
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�ET:
What…
TB:
We’re slow learners. This is our third time back in Cache Valley. (Laughter) We
come and leave, we come and leave.
ET:
What draws you back each time? I mean, obviously one time it was a job. But what
has brought you back?
TB:
The people and the country. You know, this is really where we grew up
intellectually. You know the first time we went back to Texas after being up here
we thought we wanted to go back to Texas and it was a bigger shock than coming in
to Utah in the first place, going back, because we no longer belonged anyplace. And
we grew up here intellectually with Fred Wagner and these other people that you’ll
be interviewing. That they were our posse and this is the reason we keep coming
back is because of the people here.
ET:
That’s great. Um, well, you have grown up into this, this land related profession.
What brought you to your profession?
TB:
I think I was born into it. My family, (as far as I’ve traced them back to prerevolutionary time) were always people of the land. They were farmers and
ranchers and moved west each time new land opened up. And then, I was born into
a family there in Llano County that at that time, we were tenant farmers. Granddad
and dad all lost their land in the Great Depression with …. We’ve got a bank crisis
now, they had a bank crisis then and so we lost our land, we were back on the land
as tenant farmers. And so I actually grew up with the land. I didn’t know anything
else.
ET:
And then you went to school where?
TB:
I … Well I went to school at Southwest Texas State Teachers College for my first
degree and Texas A & M for the Masters and Doctorate. I didn’t go to school,
though, until after I went into the army. I wanted to go to school. Mother
particularly and dad both, they’d neither gone past the grammar school area. But
they wanted me to go to college. But I didn’t go because I just didn’t, until I got
drafted into the army. And then when drafted in the army I went on the GI Bill and
never stopped after that.
ET:
Mm-hm. And what did you major in?
TB:
Agricultural education in the first degree and then Range Ecology for a master’s
and doctorate. I got into the Range program… I didn’t know there was such a thing
as range management existed until one of my professors caught me one day. I was
already in the process with the two other people building a radio station: I managed
a radio station for a while. And we were building a new radio station and the
professor, Leroy Young, stopped me in the hall, saw me looking at a bulletin board
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�and said “You’re interested in range management?” And I said, “Yeah.” And he
says “Come with me over to Texas A & M next week.” So I went over to Texas A
& M and they offered me a fellowship and I sold out my part of the radio station
and went back to school.
ET:
Hmm. Now I want to ask, I want to invite all of you if you see that I miss a followup, I mean or I might have been planning to ask it later. But if there’s a follow up
question that you want to ask, raise your hand so that, so that I can call on you. Yes,
Randy.
RW:
I was curious about your [attending] a teacher [college]. [Did you get a degree as a
teacher at] a K-12 teacher at the Teacher’s College?
TB:
Yes. In fact I have a permanent teaching certificate, a high school teaching
certificate which came into being during my first assignment here. The College of
Natural Resources and the College of Education were having a big fight over who
was to teach conservation education. And both colleges wanted it and the other one
don’t. So finally the Dean of the Education College said the only way we can have
this taught in natural resources is you have to have a certified teacher. And Whit
Floyd who was Dean then came to the faculty and said “Does anybody in here have
a teaching certificate?” I raised my hand and so I started teaching conservation
education as an overload. They didn’t pay me extra for it. They didn’t give me any
release time. “You just, you teach it.” And so I taught it.
ET:
Oh my gosh.
BC:
I was kind of curious, you mentioned the GI Bill. Could you talk a little bit about
the impact that had on your generation in education?
TB:
Oh, well, absolutely. I think there were two great education acts. And neither of
them really came across as an education act in the building of America as far as I’m
concerned. The first one was the Morrell Act that established land grant colleges
and we’re in one here today [Utah State University]. The other was the GI Bill,
because what the GI Bill did was take a bunch of kids that had grown up in the
cedar breaks or on cotton farms or somewhere else, drug them out, taught them a
little sanitation and organization and then educated us. They sent us back and had us
go to college, trade school, whatever we wanted to. But educate us.
And if you look at what happened to the United States after that, when these people
came into the work force, it literally changed this country. The captains of industry,
the outstanding lawyers or politicians, all of them came out of that thing of where
we dared to educate all the people. And I feel very strongly that that’s the
responsibility of the people to educate themselves. And particularly educate the
poor kids that aren’t going to get into college any other way. I wouldn’t have gone
to college, in fact when I got out of high school I had, I think, six or seven different
scholarships offered to me. I was Valedictorian of my class, I was a fair football
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�player, and I could have gone to college, but I didn’t know how. I sent off to get the
forms and they came back and they had stuff about student credit hours. I had no
idea what they were. And I was too embarrassed to go and ask anybody else what
they were. So I said I didn’t want to go to college. And went out building fence and
doing what my people had done for years and years, and it wasn’t until I went into
the Army. And to answer your question, a lot of people are like that. I’m not unique
there. They simply didn’t know what was available out there. They didn’t know
what ideas other people were thinking, or where you could get somebody interested
in ideas other than how to make a living out of the land.
ET:
But you chose a land related college education and that… is that because you...
why? Why was that?
TB:
This is going to sound corny but it actually happened. I was, after I got out of the
Army for the summer I was running the jack hammer on a construction crew. I
knew I wanted to go to college, but I had intended to be an engineer. Because I
thought building bridges and all that sort of thing would be good. And I was
working on construction and that seemed to be working out alright. And one
afternoon after work I walked down and sat on a creek bank, looking down at,
watching some cattle water down there. And a doe and fawn came up and watered
down there. And I sat and looked at that. I said, “I don’t want to build bridges. I
want to be back on the ranch somewhere. I want to be in ranching.” So that
afternoon I decided that I’m going into agriculture. And the reason I took
agricultural education I didn’t know anybody in any other form of agriculture,
except the county agent and the ag teacher. Those were the only ones I’d had any
contact with.
ET:
Was that moment strong enough to be called an epiphany?
TB:
I guess it’s an epiphany, yeah. I’ll go there with you. It was just I think facing up to
what I really wanted, you know. I had thought, I considered law at one time,
engineering. These were the sorts of things that they talk about that you go off and
make a lot of money and do important things and I thought that was what I wanted.
But when I came back and saw that doe and fawn down there on the creek bank, I
decided I really wanted to be in the ranching business. And I kidded myself for
many, many years, thinking that’s what I wanted to do even after I got in academia.
I think one of these days I’ll make enough money to buy a ranch to go back to that.
But I didn’t.
ET:
So you know what they say. The way to make a small fortune at ranching; start out
with a big one. (laughter) Um, I had a similar experience, and you know I took… I
took Western Literature from Tom Lyon here at USU back in the [19]80s and I
remember he, one of his ideas was that people who become western writers who
can be really identified as western writers are people who have in fact had some sort
of an epiphany with the land. They’ve had some sort of experience that has
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�transformed them. And brought them to a decision or has somehow changed their
outlook or confirmed their outlook. And that’s why I ask, because it sort of sounds
like one of those moments.
TB:
I don’t think I recognized it as that sort of a moment. It was just, you know,
deciding that’s really what I want to do. I’ve been kidding myself, I don’t want to
go off and wear a hard hat and design bridges and that sort of thing. I want to be out
here with the cattle and deer and run a ranch.
ET:
That’s great. Well um, so let’s see, have we covered what all your professional
training was? Have we, you had, you had your undergraduate degree.
TB:
I had an undergraduate degree then I did that in 2 ½ years. I came…. Well once I
got out of the Army I decided I wanted to go through. So I went right through,
summer school, everything else. Taking overloads every semester. And then we, I
got a fellowship over at Texas A & M and went into Range Management work and
had a really, luck I guess to be given a fellowship on the Rob and Bessie Welder
Wildlife [Foundation] Refuge in South Texas. I was the first fellowship recipient
there, where a wealthy oil man in South Texas had given his ranch and oil wells to a
foundation to study wildlife in relationship to ranching. And so I was their first
graduate student and I went down there and I learned a lot about research and
ranching and so on. But I had very good fortune to be, meet a couple of people that
really changed my life. And one of them was from here in Utah, Dr. Clarence
Cottam. He was, came from down in Utah’s Dixie. He was Dean of Biology at
Brigham Young [University] before he took the job down in Texas. And the other
one was Caleb Glazener, a teetotoling Baptist from South Texas. And these two
men, I think as far as their work ethic, their dedication to science, what they thought
we ought to be doing, was more important than any academic work they did.
Because they really believed that we were out there to do something for society, not
to it; that our work had to make a difference. They wanted it to be good work. But
they also wanted it to be applicable to the people in South Texas.
ET:
How do you spell Glazener?
TB:
GLAZENER
ET:
GLAZ
TB:
ENER
ET:
E N E R. And Cottam is C O T T AM?
TB:
COTTAM
ET:
Now tell me once more the name of the reserve?
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�TB:
Rob & Bessie Welder (W E L D E R) Wildlife Refuge. Clarence Cottam’s brother
Walter Cottam was the old ecologist down at the University of Utah. And their son
is Grant Cottam or Walter’s son, Grant Cottam was the ecologist back at Wisconsin
in you know, good blood lines and ecology came through their, got into my training
very early.
ET:
That’s great. This is probably a point where we can stop. Is there anyone who wants
to follow up with another question about his education? I think stopping at your
education and we’re about to where we should end. I don’t want to stop. (laughter)
TB:
Well you didn’t stop with my education. My education really came after I got on
the job out here in Utah. (laughing)
BC:
I have one more question, Elaine. When you got involved with looking at the
wildlife and how it impacts ranching, where was that science at at that time period?
Was it in infancy or were you building on another body of work or were you at the
beginning of that?
TB:
I’m, I’m…
BC:
As far as, you know, you mentioned you went to this wildlife …
TB:
Yeah.
BC…refuge to look at how ranching and wildlife coexisted. And I was wondering where
the science was at that time
TB:
Oh, the science. Okay. The field.
BC:
The field. Was it in its infancy or…
TB:
It was in its infancy. And Mr. Welder was really a visionary, I think. Because his
will that drew up the mission for that refuge is a classic. He wanted science, but he
also wanted it to be practical and he wanted them tied together. And that
foundation, now, I think, it turned out something like 250 or 260 Ph.D. candidates
from all over the world. Anybody, after I came here on the faculty I had several
students, Jim Bounds was one, that did work down there. You apply for a grant and
you can send a student down there to do the work and the foundation covers all the
work.
But no it was sort of a ground-breaking idea of how do we make money out of
ranching and still keep the wildlife and the community healthy. And the trustees
that set that up were very careful. They did a nationwide search looking for people
like that and they picked these two that I mentioned. Clarence Cottam, who had
been the chief scientist for the Fish and Wildlife Service before he went to Brigham
Young and then Caleb Glazener who was head of the Texas Parks and Wildlife
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�Service at that time, and a world renowned wild turkey guy. So they put together
some people that they knew and knew could do the work. Yeah, it was an early
experiment in that sort of thing and it’s worked out very well.
BC:
Has it continued today?
TB:
Oh yes. Yes it has. I got their, their annual report just the other day and I think they
have like 16 fellows down there now working on the refuge, which is interesting.
When I was down there, well, they brought on two others right after I did. There
were three of us, all males. This last group of 16 I think there are only three males,
the rest of them are females. And there are a couple of Hispanics and at least one
black woman there, which when I was down there you know, they had people of
different colors and different jobs on the ranch. You just didn’t, you wouldn’t think
about a scientist in a dark skinned person there.
RW:
I have a question. We may need to refine our questions about this. I just thought of,
in some professions having a family, a wife. Some are more conducive to doing that
than others. Like in our profession, folklore, public folklore, a lot of people can’t
sustain a marriage because they’re gone a lot at night, they’re gone during, you
know, just big chunks of time doing field work. Have you… where, did your
marriage come in during this time? And your children? Is there, you know, does a
spouse have to be on board with this kind of lifestyle?
TB:
Yes they do. And that’s a whole nother story. And that would take several tapes to
tell that. But just the first one: I had just gotten married when I accepted the
fellowship over at, at Texas A & M. And so Jenny went with me down to the
Welder. And I didn’t have any field crew then and she was a city girl, she wasn’t
very good at it, but she came out and helped me. She was in the field practically all
the time every day. In fact, so much that when I finally got my first degree – the
Master’s degree, the old soil conservation man in San Patricio County who had
been out helping me and worked with me wrote the graduate dean and said would
you please put Mr. and Mrs. on this degree. (Laughter) Because she was out there
working with me every day. But where the strain really came in is later when I had
projects in Africa and Australia and all over the world and would be gone, you
know for a month or six weeks at a time and it’s hard on a wife to stay home and
take care of the kids and so on when you’re doing things like that.
ET:
I hate to stop. But we’ll stop.
TB:
We’re going to get around to Logan Canyon sometime, aren’t we? (Laughter)
ET:
We will
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LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Thadis Box
Place of Interview:
Date of Interview:
At Mr. Box’s home in Logan UT.
April 1, 2008
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Bob Parson
Bob Parson
Recording Equipment:
Cassette Recorder
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Susan Gross
Thad Box (4/4/09); Randy Williams (2011)
Brief Description of Contents: The interview contains some childhood and pre-college
influences on Thadis Box. He speaks of his education, mentors and of his subsequent career as a
natural resource professor. Box speaks about his philosophy on ecology and land management
practices, the development of natural resource management principles and how they may be
extended and applied beyond land management.
Reference:
BP = Bob Parson (Interviewer; USU University Archivist)
TB = Thad Box
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with
brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 2: A]
BP:
It is April Fools, so we want you to be honest!
TB:
Yeah, well I thought about putting a frog in your coffee cup, but I didn’t!! [Laughing]
BP:
I’m Bob Parson, I’m here with Doctor Thadis Box, former Dean of Natural Resources,
Utah State University. We’re at his home on west Center Street. Beautiful home, first
time I’ve been in here Thad.
TB:
Thank you. Well, I’ll show you around before you leave if you’d like.
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�BP:
I’d appreciate that; a home with a lot of history in it. This was an Eccles home?
TB:
No, a Nibley.
BP:
Nibley home, right. Well we sort of started this interview a week or so ago; or two weeks
ago when Elaine Thatcher began to interview you at the Mountain West Center on
campus. And we discussed a little bit about your formative life and career in the Texas
hill country. And I wanted to just sort of begin there and follow up.
You mentioned a couple of mentors that you had down there. One was Clarence Cottam
who was a Utah man. I wonder if he had any influence on you taking your initial position
here in 1959?
TB:
Yes he did. In fact, he and my major professor (that I didn't mention) is also one of my
mentors. Vernon Young, a direct descendant of Brigham Young, was my major
professor. And when I graduated – both those people actually offered me jobs in Texas –
but I had an offer from Utah State here. And I wanted to come up here because at that
time Larry Stoddart and Wayne Cook and Art Smith were the big names in Range
Management. I wanted a chance to work with them, so I came up here then. But they all
gave me good recommendations and sort of clued me in on how to live in Utah,
particularly Clarence Cottam. He was a very interesting guy. When I decided to take the
job he brought me a stack of books. Clarence was a good Mormon – in fact I think he was
stake president at the time. But he brought me books, not only by Mormons, but antiMormon books for me to read and said, “Get prepared to live in Utah, read these.” And
we’d discuss them.
BP:
So he showed you both sides of the coin?
TB:
Yes, he did, he did. In fact one of the books that he recommended most highly had just
come out at the time No Man Knows My History.
BP:
Wow.
TB:
By Fawn Brodie. And he said Fawn Brodie was a real scholar and that I should pay
attention to what she wrote. And when I came up here I found out not everyone agreed
with Dr. Cottam. In fact we lost a babysitter because she saw it in our house and left.
BP:
It was not well received in Mormonia.
TB:
Well one of the things I’ve learned living in Utah, coming in then, is that Mormons who
are outside of Utah have a much different attitude toward the world and people around
them and other religions, as you do once you get into Zion here.
BP:
Why do you think that is, Thad?
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�TB:
Well I think they have to survive out there. They also get associated with people of all
different religions and faiths and so on. And they just, I think have a broader view of the
world.
BP:
Um-hmm.
TB:
They’re not any less a Mormon or for Mormons, I think those two men that I mentioned
(Vernon Young and Clarence Cottam) are two of the finest men I’ve ever known and
they lived the Mormon faith quite well, but they also let other people live their lives quite
well! [Laughing] But that wasn’t what – has much to do with Logan Canyon I guess!
BP:
No!
TB:
It’s how I came here though.
BP:
But it is interesting and then that’s sort of background to the social landscape. I want to
sort of follow up and I don’t know how many times you’d been here prior to your
employment here, but what were your thoughts as you came into the mountain west,
particularly Cache Valley, as compared to the hill country in Texas?
TB:
Well the first time I came here I had been to a meeting in Great Falls, Montana and drove
down through Logan Canyon, stopped here and visited the university and then out. And
at that time I was just overwhelmed at the beauty. I never thought I would live here at the
time that we came through. And I was particularly impressed with Cache Valley. One of
my earliest memories about that were the Lombardi Poplar trees lining the irrigation
ditches, delimiting the fields; when you drove into the valley you could see it laid out like
a map with the trees around the properties.
BP:
A distinctive part of the historic Mormon landscape.
TB:
Yeah, yes. And those trees disappeared in the ‘60s – earlier than that. When I left here in
’59 there were still lots of trees and I came back in ’70, most of them were gone.
BP:
What do you attribute that to? The short life of the trees?
TB:
Oh no. I attribute it to – I know why – because there was a movement with the federal aid
program to farmers to save water, to get rid of poplar trees. And they paid people to kill
them. And so they took them out all over the nation, not just in Cache Valley. So it was a
subsidized government program that took them out.
But anyway, back to what I felt like when I came into the mountain west. Let me go back
-- that was my first trip through here, just a fleeting trip.
BP:
What year would that have been?
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�TB:
That was in, must have been 1957; 1957. Then I came back here in 1959 as a professor,
or Assistant Professor in the Range Department. I was hired over the telephone and with
telegraphs (we didn’t have emails then); didn’t come up for an interview.
BP:
Didn’t fly you out?
TB:
Didn’t fly me up, no. And Jenny had never been in this part of the country at all. And we
left College Station with a new car – ’59 Chev – and a trailer on behind it that I built
myself out of an old Ford delivery wagon; looked like something going to Oklahoma! All
of our possessions in it, and a kid that was just learning to walk. And as we drove west
out through New Mexico – we’d spent quite bit of time in New Mexico – and into
Colorado and then into Utah, we were more and more impressed at the vastness of the
country, the friendliness of the country. Our first impression of Utah, we stopped in
Monticello to get gasoline and the guy came up and he was wiping our windows (which
they used to in the service stations) and he stuck his head in and saw our son and he said,
“Do you need a doctor?” and we said, “No, we’re all right.” And he said, “Well we have
a doctor.” Which rather surprised me, and I said, “Oh yeah, you do?” And he said, “Yeah
we finally got one, he’s here now, he’s in town.” [Laughing] He started telling me about
the doctor and I don’t remember what he was. He was some sort of a foreigner. But they
were just really pleased to tell somebody that stopped to buy gasoline that they had a
doctor in that town! And so that was sort of a shock – was Utah really this backward that
nobody has doctors? -- Because we didn’t know.
And we came on up here, drove into Cache Valley from the south and over the old road –
not the one that goes up Wellsville Canyon now – the old Sardine Canyon road. We were
really impressed; got in here really tired. I think we’d driven from Moab that day, a long
trip with a trailer on behind us, anyway, and tired. Got a motel, got in and I called my
professor –Larry Stoddart (this was in middle of the afternoon), he said, “Well come over
for supper.” Which I thought was fine. And he said, “I’ll pick you up in a couple of
hours” which he did. He drove us over to the house, it was summer so it was long days,
and we ate a barbecue or something he cooked in the backyard. And then he loaded us up
and took us up Logan Canyon. After all this driving, I thought, “My gosh, why is he
going to give us another trip up the canyon?” But I was young and polite and thought he
was going to tell me about range management. But he didn’t. He drove up the canyon, he
pointed out the camping places, he pointed out fishing holes. He stopped and showed us
this trail where their little boy learned to walk; we could go up that trail. And he talked
about Logan Canyon like he was sharing a special gift to us. Even as tired as we were and
wanted to get home and wanted to get the kid to bed, we were impressed at him giving us
the gift of the canyon and told us about it.
And it turned out to be one of the greatest gifts that we got when we came to Logan
because for the many years we’ve been here, anytime we feel frustrated or tense we go up
Logan Canyon. We did it with the kids when they were little, they were raising Cain with
us and having trouble, we’d just load up and take them up the canyon, let them play in the
water or go for a hike or something else. And as the kids left, Jenny and I now in the
summer time, I’d say probably three times a week we have supper up the canyon.
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�BP:
What’s your favorite spot up there?
TB:
Oh, I’m not going to give you the exact spot! Our favorite spot, and in fact the one last
summer when Jenny and I were sitting up there and we were talking about getting near
the end of life we decided that’s where we want our ashes to be scattered after the
medical students get done carving or whatever they’re going to do [laughing] (we’re
going to donate our bodies). But then I understand they cremate the remains and send
them back to the family. So we’re going to have to tell them where it is. It’s up near Tony
Grove, but it’s not at Tony Grove. It’s a place where you can stop your car and walk
about 150 yards I guess and be completely out of the hearing of the cars and a little
stream running by. I guess that’s the favorite place; one of the favorite places.
BP:
How important is it to humanity to have that solitude; to have places like that? Obviously
to Lawrence Stoddart it was very important. That’s the first place he took you; the first
thing that he wanted to show you.
TB:
Yeah, that had always impressed me. You know as tired as we were and the kid wanting
to go to bed, he felt like he had to show us that canyon and I appreciate it. But your
question how important is it? I don’t know. I think it’s important and reading
psychological literature and recreation literature that I’ve done, I don’t know how
important it is but it’s important for people to have some way of relaxing an getting the
worries of the day out of the way. People do it many different ways. One of the great
things about living here is that there are so many outdoor areas where you can go and get
away.
An example of that, when I found out about the 9/11 attacks I’d been at a meeting in the
morning and didn’t know about it and came back in here about 10 o’clock. And my
daughter in law who lived in town at the time called wanting to get together with family.
Well I tried to get in touch with them and she’d picked up Paul and they’d gone
somewhere else, so I just drove up the canyon. And I drove up to a place up in the Tony
Grove area and walked, got away from everybody and wrote a poem (which later became
a column that I published here in the local paper). But it was just having a place to go and
sit and think without other people bothering you. And that’s very important. I’m rambling
now, but that’s a way of answering your question. I don’t know how important it is.
Some people, those that live in Tokyo or somewhere where there is no outdoors must find
another spot, but it’s essential, I think, for human beings to have a way to get away from
others.
BP:
Well I think you know, we are very fortunate here because in large cities – I mean that’s
the argument used for the preservation of parks and open spaces and things like that. And
we have the most beautiful park imaginable right up here in these mountains.
TB:
Oh yes. And Logan Canyon is a real treasure – but it’s not only the mountains and the
public land and that direction; you can go west and then marvelous deserts in an hour’s
drive. East it’s a little quicker; ten minutes from now I can be up and away from people.
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�One of the interesting things now with all the increase in population, number of people,
you can still go up Logan Canyon and get out of your car and walk a quarter of a mile
and be completely away from people. I don’t think many of the newcomers realize this;
they drive up the road, they don’t bother just to pull up a side canyon and stop and start
walking.
BP:
I think it is a unique canyon. I don’t have a lot of experience, but one time we were in
Denver (lived there for a summer) and the canyons around Denver and around Boulder
and places like that, you can’t do that. It’s all private property – a lot of it is.
TB:
You’re right. And in fact that’s one reason that we live in Utah. We live in Utah for the
people and for the scenery and other things. But one of the reasons we live in Logan is
that we have public land on all sides of us. And I have more freedom to get out and
traipse around over the land now than I would’ve had I stayed in Texas and owned one of
the largest ranches in Texas. I could not take 10 million dollars and buy the kind of space
that I can use here, in my home town in Texas. Yeah, having public land is one of the
main –
BP:
No public lands in Texas.
TB:
Oh, no. Just small blocks, little state parks and I think a couple small National Forests.
BP:
When you got here and accepted your first position, how long were you here before you
left to go to New Mexico?
TB:
Oh, to go to New Mexico we were here thirty-something years. When I left the first time
I went back to Texas.
BP:
Oh, right Texas. Oh, okay.
TB:
Yeah. Well we were here three years in the first hitch. Yeah.
BP:
Three years. And how was the discipline of range management and talk a little bit more
about Art Smith and Larry Stoddart and Wayne Cook.
TB:
Well the discipline of Range Management, Forestry, all the natural resource professions
were in a phase of what I call “rehabilitation” or rebuilding the landscape. As I look back
at policy changes through the centuries, the first 100 years or so, up until about 1900 our
national policy was to conquer nature: get people out, settle the land. And it was the right
thing to do – I’m not denigrating our people, they had to settle the country, bring it under
control; bring it to bear. And then we went through a period of time when we started
trying to preserve things: setting aside national parks, setting aside national forests, and
so on with preservation. And then just about the time of the dust bowls in the ‘30s the
professions switched to one of trying to rebuild the thing that had already been messed
up. You know we went from exploitation to trying to preserve it and seeing that wasn’t
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�working, and let’s rebuild it. And that was the stage that Range Management was in in
the 1950s when I came in.
This school here, Utah State University, had a particular important role in that. They first
started teaching Range Management, Watershed Management, Forestry in 1914. And it
wasn’t until 1918 that they had a full curriculum under a man named Becraft started the
program here. And then in 1928 there became a Forestry School added Forestry to Range
Management and Watershed Management, brought in several other people and then the
people that I came in contact with Art Smith, Larry Stoddart and Wayne Cook – they
were sort of the second or third wave that came in, mostly just before World War II. And
they are really the ones that made the big impression on the rest of the world of what was
happening here in Utah.
Stoddart and Smith wrote a textbook that was first published in 1943 I believe (it may
have been published before that); they outlined the principles of Range Management that
were used all across the world then.
BP:
I believe it was called Range Management.
TB:
Yeah it was, Range Management by Stoddart and Smith. And that was the reason I
wanted to come here because they were the real leaders in this place. Very good scientists
and amazing people. Stoddart was trained in the Nebraska School of Ecology and had
that approach of Ecology and succession and brought that to this country. Art Smith was
raised in Providence, went to school here, studied under Becraft (the first guy that I
talked about) and then went to California and to Michigan for advanced degrees. And so
he brought to the table the whole contact with the local people because he was the local
people. You know I would often see him up the canyon on a horse. In fact some of the
early students that you may interview in this series will talk about Art Smith riding his
horse up to teach summer camp or breaking a colt the same time he was teaching kids.
And so these were I’d say two gents in the field that I was very fortunate in being able to
study with.
BP:
What was the reaction from resource users during that early period when the profession
was trying to make inroads in to rebuild?
TB:
It was mixed as it is today. You know the more progressive farmers and ranchers and
users of the land saw the value of science and how to apply it. And having worked both
in private and public land states, I’d say in private land states they are more ready to
accept this because it was their land that they were improving and they could see. Here in
the intermountain west many of the users of the public land resisted very strongly any
sort of regulation or any college people telling them what to do. I think the reasoning was
that attitude was tied in to the loss of permits. Because the public land was managed with
the laws that went into effect in the 1930s. Land was adjudicated and people had the
privilege to graze a number of animals on each given allotment. And then as science
came in and began to evaluate and say that many of them were overstocked. In fact I’d
say most of them were overstocked. And so one of the tools was bringing the vegetation
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�carrying capacity into equilibrium with the number of animals that were on there. And
most people then had to have their number of animals reduced. The people who had those
permits saw it as a loss of livelihood. That’s where there were really, really great
conflicts over the years that continued and still continue to this day but not as much as
when I came here in the ‘50s. It was probably at a peak then.
There were a lot of new Forest Rangers coming in that were dead set to get the land back
to where it could graze animals sustainably and there were people dead set that they
weren’t going to take any animals off the land. And so it became very bitter and difficult
situation.
BP:
During your long tenure here in the Valley have you seen positive changes in the
vegetation and things up the canyon?
TB:
Oh yes! If we had a video and when the snow melts I could take you and show you places
where Benny Goodwin (who was another young professor at the time that I was here) and
I built exclosures up Right Hand Fork and down Left Hand Fork on the other side. The
land was completely bare. Now the posts are still there for the exclosures but the wire
was taken up a number of years ago by the Forest Service. But there’s no difference.
There’s vegetation inside and outside the exposure now. It’s all healed over; the stream
banks are healing over. When I was here in 1959-60 putting up those exclosures it was
bare soil. It was just really beat out and grazed out, particularly in the bottoms.
Up Temple Fork and Spawn Creek and that area, was an area where when I taught
summer camp the first time in 1959, I’d take students to that Spawn Creek, Temple Fork
area to do their exercises and we would find areas – most of them were completely
grazed out. You could not find a whole lot of stuff except shrubs for them to work on.
We’d have to pick around to find the kind of vegetation we needed to do our exams. And
it was a good place to give a variation of different conditions as you went away from the
creeks or rivers up the side hill. So we had all that, but yeah. To answer your question
there is much, much more vegetation here – herbaceous vegetation – than there was when
I came here in 1959.
BP:
And that should benefit not only the land, but it should benefit the permittee too.
TB:
Yes it would. And I think the permittees are – I’ve not been directly involved with them
in the last decade, but it seems to me that there’s more understanding of what they’re
trying to do and willingness to graze them efficiently than there was before.
BP:
What are your thoughts on the two extremes? You mentioned the one extreme of grazers
in the early period that wanted essentially to put as many animal units up there as they
could possibly put, and the other extreme that says, “Get them all out.” Is there a place
for livestock on the mountain?
TB:
Of course there’s a place for livestock on the mountain. And in any argument, the
extremes are both wrong, when you get right down to it. The objective should be (on
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�private land or public land) particularly on the public land, where we’re trying to keep it
for future generations is to use it with whatever use you want to, but use it sustainably –
that meaning that it would perpetuate itself and options would be left open for future
generations.
You know a few generations ago the main use they wanted to make of land was livestock
or cutting timber from it and sod. Now this generation has many different ideas. Some of
them still want to grow livestock up there; some of them want to use it for just a
watershed to make sure we have plenty of clear water; others may want to ski on it or
something else. But the point is we ought to manage the land so that future uses will not
be cut out, that they’ll be available. We may not even be able to imagine what the future
uses are. So that means that the productive base itself – the plants and the soil – have to
be kept healthy and there to serve whatever needs we want in the future.
BP:
Was that the intent of the Multiple Use Land Act in the mid-70s? To try to –
TB:
Sort of. It was also somewhat of a political tool. The intent of the act that set aside the
National Forest, the act that created the Bureau of Land Management to manage the trade
lands, all those – the intent was to develop some sort of sustainable uses on the land.
They didn’t say it that way in those days, but that was the intent. You can go back and
look at the arguments and the intent of Congress – that’s what they wanted was to
perpetuate a healthy landscape in the long period of time. The Multiple Use Sustained
Yield Act came out mainly because of the arguments between environmentalists and
users – whether they be foresters or cattlemen or whatever else. And one of the political
compromises said let’s put it in the law that we should have multiple uses and sustained
yield. They spelled out the multiple uses pretty well, but they didn’t really understand
what they were talking about with sustained yield. And the reason I said earlier it was
somewhat a political act was that they wanted to guarantee future use of livestock or
timber, and all these other things on the land and then threw in the sustained yield
because they were looking again at the future of some sort.
BP:
What does sustained yield mean? How do you define that?
TB:
Well, how I define it and how it’s defined in the act and some other things are slightly
different. Sustained yield in the acts of Congress usually mean that you can continue to
produce timber or whatever product it is in perpetuity. In my definition of sustained yield
is that sustained yield is something that is using a resource or a unit of any kind to where
it can remain healthy and viable and keep options open for future generations. There are
several general principles that I think one needs to do when they’re talking about
sustained yield. One is that there should be equity and justice in the present generation
and the generation –
[Stop and start recording]
[Tape 1 of 2: B]
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�BP:
Okay we’ve turned the tape over here and Dr. Box was speaking about sustained yield
before. I’m not quite sure when that ran out – it cut some of your words off. But anyway,
let’s –
TB:
Okay well let me back up and talk about what my definition of what it takes to have
sustained yield of anything – whether it’s a human community or a plant community. The
first is that there is equity and justice in the current generation. By that I mean that the
individuals in the generation, whether they be plants, or animals, or people have the
opportunity to grow and prosper and reproduce. If they don’t reproduce there’s no way
you’re going to have sustained yield. The second thing is that there should be equity and
justice in future generations so that these generations can be passed one to the other;
again, whether we’re talking about grass on a rangeland or people in a human
community. And the third one that ties those two together is that the system has to have
some sort of trans-generational transfer to where you could transfer things from the
present generation into the future. And this includes genetic transfer, which we know
about, it also includes cultural transfer – that you have to be able to transfer the values
from one generation to the other. Again whether it’s animals knowing how to graze and
why to fence that area, or people. And in all these the long term health of the system has
to take priority over short-term gain and if it doesn’t then you lose sustainability. So all
these put together is what I call sustained yield, or sustainability, is that we have a system
that will continue in perpetuity. It doesn’t speak to uses, it doesn’t speak to “we’re going
to use the range for sheep or we’re going to use it for steers.” What it does is that we keep
the system healthy so that whatever the future generation wants can use it for that. And
they have the obligation to use it so if somebody wants to go and run giraffes on it later
they can!
BP:
Can I make an observation?
TB:
Yeah.
BP:
It seems to me that you’re lifelong study of vegetation and grass and rangelands and stuff
has philosophically moved way beyond that to embrace the whole human condition.
TB:
Well I think we have to. I mean, we are humans so we have to look at the human
condition. But we can learn a lot from looking at a piece of rangeland.
BP:
Um-hmm.
TB:
We can learn a lot if we stick to principles rather than get to arguing over uses or are we
going to use this land for recreation and run motorized vehicles on it or are we going to
run sheep on it? You know, you back up and look at that. The other thing that I didn’t
mention in my little definition of sustainability is that we have to look very carefully at
the interconnections and the interconnectedness of the system. The connections in the
system may be as valuable or more valuable than the system itself, so you don’t want to
break any of those connections. I get irritated. In the paper today there somebody was
talking about sustained growth in Cache Valley. You can’t have sustained growth unless
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�you are very careful in how you define growth. Growth in any reasonable definition is
getting bigger or getting more of it. And so if you get more and more and bigger and
bigger you eventually can’t get any bigger; you fill everything up. So the only way you
can have sustained growth is to not consider growth getting larger or more economically
productive or more people or anything else, but in quality. If you define growth as getting
to be better quality then you can have sustained growth. And I’m way off range
management now! [Laughing]
BP:
Well I don’t think you are because it comes down to an economic argument and the
reason people wanted to put more and more animals on to the public land was because
that was more and more revenue. It may be a quantum leap for some, but it’s not for me,
to see the reason that people want more and more subdivisions and more and more
commercial growth is to have more and more revenue.
TB:
Oh, of course!
BP:
That becomes one of the arguments. I think that your generation has been able to make
that argument more effectively on the mountain up here than they have as far as the
growth in communities.
TB:
You know one of the discouraging things is first, I would agree with you that I think
people that came before me and hopefully my generation has done a pretty good job of
taking care of the mountain, showing how it can be used. But the people as a whole have
not come along with this. You know, they’ve become more and more disassociated with
natural processes and are into artificial subsets of the main processes, whether it’s in the
stock market or whether it’s painting houses or something else, and they don’t get back to
looking at principles. And I just really get excited and celebrate when I hear somebody at
any level – whether they’re a businessman or a politician or something else – that starts
talking about principles and looking at how we can fit this in with the problem.
BP:
Um-hmm. I tend to get too far field too. But I just want to ask you because I know you
mentioned before the connection with the land and how you had that connection in Texas
and how you wanted to continue to have that connection. And fewer and fewer of us are
able to have a connection with the land, and maybe that’s why there’s the disconnect
between what you’re talking about as far as sustainability and human communities.
TB:
Oh, it absolutely is. It’s a big societal problem is that there are so few people that ever
even have contact with the land. Fortunately I see a trend now in trying to get people
back in touch with the land. There have been several people in education start looking at
the ideas of getting people out and getting their hands dirty and getting them into their
yards or leaving some natural areas and getting kids out into it. And I think it’s important
at a very early age if we can. Most of the kids in America today – the only association
that they have with the land is probably recreational experience: they went to a park; they
went to Yellowstone one time. They don’t have the opportunity to get out and get
themselves dirty. There was a little soapbox article in the Herald Journal last week (I
forget the guy’s name) up in Preston that works in the D.I. up there that wrote about his
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�backyard. And I just wanted to celebrate because he was talking about as a kid getting out
there and the battles that he fought and how he won the NBA in the dirt and getting dirty
and having forts that he defended against all comers. All those things they are important.
And the kids I think want that. I have grandkids and one of the things that is most
enjoyable to me is to go out with the little two year old and that they get more interested
in the earthworm than they do in me! You know that is an exciting thing! But they’ve
constantly got pressures from something else because they live in a different world.
A couple of years ago when my grandson William was about just maybe two and a half,
three years old – he was “helping” me (to use the word loosely) in my flower garden
outside. I try to get the kids to work with me out there. And he found a dead butterfly and
he brought to me and said, “Grandpa, make it fly.” And I said, “It can’t, its dead.” And he
said, “Well put in new batteries.”
BP:
Wow! That speaks volumes there!
TB:
Right! Yeah. “Put in new batteries Grandpa.” And I couldn’t put in new batteries, but it
was a moment to stop and talk to him about why you couldn’t put in new batteries when
you found a dead butterfly.
BP:
How important in the training of students, how important was that summer camp up the
canyon by Tony Grove?
TB:
Again, how important, I don’t know. I think it is extremely important in teaching anyone,
not just natural resource people, but people that are studying to be natural resource
professionals, need hands-on experience. Just like I was talking about the little kids need
hands-on experience. They need to get out; they need to be able to identify the plants,
they need to be able to fight a fire, they need to be able to do the sorts of things that you
can’t do indoors. And that summer camp was a marvelous opportunity to do that.
My first experience in teaching in Utah was in summer camp. I came here at the first of
June in 1959 and Larry Stoddart told me we’re not going to have you teach anything this
summer, I want you to travel with the other professors and get out and see their
experiments; we have some money we can set up a little experiment for you, but we want
you to get acquainted with this country. On July 3rd my phone rang and it was my
department head, Stoddart said, “I’m going to have to go back on my word. Wayne Cook
who teaches summer camp, his mother died back in Kansas and he’s going. You’ll have
to start Monday morning.” That was a Friday! [Laughing] And I panicked! I didn’t know
what – “What am I going to do!” I didn’t even know what -- . And he said, “Wayne his
notes and curriculum stuff up in his office. You can go up and get it and look at it.” And I
went up and looked and I didn’t really understand it. Benny Goodwin was here and I
talked to Benny and he said, “Let’s go up and give you a short course.”
So we went up the canyon and Benny walked around identifying plants. I didn’t even
know the plants! I was raised down in Texas and these were whole new plants and stuff
to me. So we spent all Fourth of July with Jenny taking care of the baby down on the
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�river and Benny Goodwin and I walking around looking at plants. I took a Life magazine
with me and he’d tell me the name of a plant and I’d throw it in there and write its name
down. And we got about 100 plants. (No, that was Saturday. Sunday was the Fourth of
July.) And I went up – Jenny and I alone – on the Fourth of July and we picked up all the
– went through this again and I learned it. And then on the 5th of July, Monday, I was
professor and I went in and talked to these kids. And I asked some of them afterwards
(Jim Bowns, I think you’ll interview him this project later on, was one of the students
there) and I asked them, “Did you know just how scared I was?” And they said, “No! We
thought you were the professor.” But I did. So I learned as I went along there.
BP:
Those would have been upperclassman – didn’t they take this they’re senior --?
TB:
They took it between the sophomore and junior years. But these were mostly veterans
that I was teaching there. Most of them were as old or older than I was. But anyway, my
point is that being able to get out on the land with them and talk about principles of land
management and so on. They didn’t know but I knew that land that I was standing on – I
happened to have that crash course and being able to put names on plants and tell them
what the grass was and being able to look at the leaf of a Poa to tell a Poa from a Festuca
and so on and they thought I knew everything, but I didn’t. But to answer your question,
in that two month’s time that we had them we were able to get these students to get a
very good feel of what they would be learning the next two years. That’s the reason we
did it between the sophomore and junior year because you keep tying back to that. You
can take a field trip up there to show them later on. I think that sort of an opportunity is
essential, and I think we’ve lost something that we no longer do it. We’re not the only
college. A lot of colleges stopped. In fact, even medical schools and veterinary school
and so on now do most of their work with computers and with simulations rather than
with the real stuff. And you can do a lot with simulations, but I think if you put the two
together you’d have much, much better stuff. You could run the simulations then go out
and look at it, or collect the data and then run simulations.
BP:
Do you have any observations as to why you think that that has progressively been
downplayed? And like you say it’s across the board in academia.
TB:
Oh yeah. Well, yeah I have some examples of that. It also ties into policy. Some years
ago – in fact in the early ‘90s the Forest Service switched over and accepted the fact that
MBAs had been saying that you could be a Forest Ranger without knowing the forest.
You know, if you were a good manager you could do it. Prior to that if you went out on a
piece of land you expected the public land manager to know everything there was about
it. You know, you need to know the name of the plants, you need to know all the wildlife
there, you need to know where the drainages were and how much water was in them –
roughly, you know you didn’t have to put a weir in every one of them but you had to
know whether it was a permanent spring or not. And that gave a different kind of
management than the people that look at outcomes or data that they gather and the only
thing that they can gather are the vegetation and climate and soils and so on, and then
make projections from that. There’s a big difference, I think in the understanding this.
And as you said it’s not just in natural resources, it’s in all academia.
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�One of my students here that I had in summer camp went on to become a veterinarian. He
went to Colorado State and I saw him a couple of years ago. He’s now a very wealthy
and famous dog surgeon down in Phoenix. And he takes on, he said, about five or six
interns a year to teach them how to do surgery and so on. When he was at Colorado State,
Colorado State collected the old greyhounds at the race track there. And it was his job to
prepare them, cut them up, get them ready to ship to other veterinary schools. And he
handled thousands of dogs before he ever operated on one. And now there are very few
people who have ever had that opportunity to be able to really look and dissect an animal.
And the same thing happens on the range lands.
BP:
Well I’ll put you on the spot a little bit, but don’t you think that’s – I mean, when you get
some grazer, some rancher that’s been up here and knows every nook and cranny of these
mountains or out in the BLM country or something like that, and then you have
somebody that the Forest Service or the BLM sends in to manage that and they don’t
know anything about the landscape itself – doesn’t it leave the bureaucracy struggling for
legitimacy?
TB:
Yes it does. And it makes both the ranger or whoever it is – the manager – and the
permittee both at a disadvantage because they aren’t communicating. One of the most
important things, I think, in being a good land manager on public lands is not just their
technical ability, but their ability to communicate; to come in and talk the same language,
to be able to get out and listen to what this old guy that you’re talking about that knows
every nook and cranny, to be humble enough to say, “Would you take me up to that draw
sometime and show me that spring is a permanent spring and maybe we can improve it
some way;” instead of just trying to hide behind a regulation or a law.
In my many years of natural resource education in several states and in another country in
Australia even, we did you know, hundreds of surveys of people try to find out what we
should be teaching our kids. Very seldom did we ever get a comment that said that these
kids don’t know their trees or their grass or their animals or anything. But every time
we’d get bundles of stuff to teach these kids to talk, teach them to write, teach them to
think, teach them to get along with people. And part of this is a problem because the
people that at least used to go into natural resources self-selected because they were the
kind of people that liked to go out in the woods and not talk to anybody. And so you were
automatically working with a bunch of kids that weren’t really skilled with getting along
with other people.
BP:
When you came back here the second time as Dean, that was a period of time – in the
‘70s, right?
TB:
Yes.
BP:
That was a period of time there were a lot of those kind of people that self-selected to get
into natural resource management and those kinds of things. I guess maybe part of that
was the movement of the time. Will you speak a little bit about that?
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�TB:
Oh yeah. My 20 years as Dean here I saw all the extremes. We were talking about
extremes earlier. In the early 1970s we had the largest enrollment in Natural Resources
here that’s ever been in history – and probably ever will be. We were up to 12-1300 kids
one year. I taught a freshman class that the room seated 314 kids, and like the airlines I
would usually overbook to sign up maybe 330 and I’d think that they all wouldn’t show
up, but they did all show up! And others walked in off the halls. And I had them standing
up and the Fire Marshall writing me nasty notes about too many people in there. But it
was a time when a lot of people were really wanting to get back to nature, get out in the
woods. It was, you know near the end of the – well, it wasn’t the end, they didn’t see the
end in sight,– the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam War was hanging over people; the bomb was very real. They were scared
there might not be a tomorrow. The bomb was going to be dropped. The whole attitude of
society was building into these kids that they had to make use of the world right now and
a way to make better. They wanted to get away from the war; they wanted to get away
from the bomb. They wanted to rebuild the earth. And it was a marvelous time as far as
getting people into education.
But the change wasn’t taking place out on the land. The people were going along just as
they always had. And so there was a conflict there between these idealistic young people
coming in and the old timers and the users. You know one of the things we said then –
you’d get into a mob running behind it and say, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, where are
your leaders?” Because there were new people out doing the leading then. And almost all
the ‘50s were that way with students. And up until that time most the people that went
into natural resources, we assumed would get a job in natural resources. You know there
was always a demand for a Forest Ranger or a Range Manager or a Wildlife technician or
somebody like that.
These kids were coming in – they didn’t want a job, necessarily. They wanted to learn
something about the earth and a way to get out and make it better. They had just as soon
go into the Peace Corps and teach English as they would to work on forestry. There was a
whole different bunch of people that came in and the profession changed because of it.
And I think it changed for the better in many ways.
BP:
Um-hmm. And some of the people that we’ll be interviewing – I don’t know most of
them, I know Barbara has spoken with them, but some of these are products of that time
period.
TB:
Oh yes, yes. In fact looking down her list a lot of those are products of that time period.
BP:
How do you think their idealism changed once they got out – of course you’d have to ask
them that for sure?
TB:
Yeah, you’ll have to ask them that. Those that you’ll be interviewing are the ones that
stayed in natural resources mainly. Well, no I noticed a couple on there that became
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�school teachers and other things. But yeah, you’ll have to ask them that. But I’d like to
think that their grounding in ecology – we made attempts to get even those big classes out
on the land and to get them to think about the land – I think made a difference in
whatever they carried on. And I would argue that part of general education should be a
land-oriented course somewhere to where you get out and make contact with the land.
But they don’t do it; its hard work and such things as liability laws make a big difference
now. When I first started teaching we went on a field trip and we’d say, “Who wants to
take their car?” And they’d raise their hands and we’d take a bunch of cars up there –
wouldn’t dare do it now because you’d be subject to all sorts of lawsuits.
BP:
You wouldn’t even dare take a bus unless you’ve got some sort of liability coverage.
Yeah, that’s definitely been a limiting factor than before.
TB:
Okay – one of the objectives that I understand of this oral history project is to look at how
policy has effected land management. And you hinted on one policy there that I want to
go back and sort of emphasize – and that’s a policy in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s:
opening up the management of resources to non-resource people. And it was done for
really good reasons – Affirmative Action to get more women and minorities in there and
so on. But it broke down that idea that the manager had to be conversant with the land;
that they had to know how to manage things. And this didn’t just go on in the natural
resource professions. Where I first noticed it was in US Aid because we had a lot of
overseas projects at the time.
And it started with the Reagan Administration and went on through. There was the idea
that if you had an MBA you could manage anything, you know. You didn’t need to know
what you were dealing with; that if you had the principles of management, you could
manage it. And I saw very good aid programs overseas that were dealing with very
primitive people in agriculture – completely destroyed because they were looking for all
the reports and management and so on. So that was one thing: the change of attitude that
managers could manage anything.
BP:
Can I inject something?
TB:
Yeah.
BP:
What drove this? What’s the dog that was wagging the tail in this? Politics?
TB:
Yeah, it’s politics. And most politics are politics because there’s a real reason out there
somewhere that people are interested in. Politicians don’t dream up things to irritate
people – which most people think they do! [Laughing] They have an ideal or philosophy
that they want to get in. And I think this leads to what I was going to say.
The second thing that you probably won’t have many people talk about policy in natural
resources that I think had a huge influence, that was the idea of privatizing everything.
And it came in with the Reagan Administration. And this idea of getting MBAs and so on
was part of the idea of privatization. And how privatization affected public land
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�management is something that was pretty well hidden, you didn’t see it. But instead of
the rangers taking care of the campgrounds, for instance, and hiring a natural resource
student who would go up there and empty the garbage cans and get some on hand
training and so on – they contracted it out to a contractor who hired the cheapest labor he
could get (maybe an illegal alien, maybe his kids, somebody else to do it). And you broke
this chain of people working with the land, starting out doing the very simple sorts of
things and then working up to someday heading the Forest Service.
And you’ll hear those stories of people that started out emptying garbage cans. That
didn’t happen once you started privatizing things and outsourcing the management. It
was more visible in the Park Service where they brought in people. The biggest Park
Service manager now I think started out providing meals for prisons, but they got a
contract to manage the Park Service. So they came in and eventually they take over
everything. And that happened in all the land resource management.
So I’d say that was one of the big policy changes that affected land management and it
won’t even come up on your radar on most people you talk about. They’ll talk about the
National Forest Management Act, they’ll talk about NEPA, they’ll talk about all these
things that are very important; but the hands-on implementation came about with the idea
that we’re going to privatize the functions of whatever agency it was.
BP:
Well, so when you do that then again it comes down to the bottom line – it comes down
to economics rather than trying to get people involved in this system of managing our
lands. If a person is getting paid to empty garbage cans, that’s all they care about. If
they’re getting paid a little something to empty garbage cans, and it allows them to get up
into the mountains, into the campgrounds where they want to be eventually as a
professional, then it’s a different story, right?
TB:
Yeah, but the sad thing is if you look at the economics of it, the privatization usually
ended up costing more rather than less.
BP:
Well, you know I’m making another jump here, but look what’s happened to the military
privatization, I mean.
TB:
Yes! No you’re not making a jump – you’re going back to the principle. I was talking
about principles and they came in, primarily in the Reagan Administration and they’ve
gotten a little bit the idea that private enterprise can do a better job than the public in
anything. And there are people that held workshops and so on that argued that you should
privatize everything including the fire department and police department.
BP:
Prisons.
TB:
Prisons, yeah.
[Stop and start recording]
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�[Tape 2 of 2: A]
BP:
This is tape two; Thad Box and Bob Parson speaking this morning, April 1st, 2008. You
were talking Thad, about privatization of public agencies.
TB:
Yeah, I’d gotten off on this thing of how policy affects management and saying that I
think one of the biggest policy changes that has affected land management is the
privatization of the management of many of our resources. Which I got started in earlier
that I mentioned that it lead to selecting managers who understood managing businesses
rather than managing land and I think those two are tied together. And the privatization
started out very slowly with some of the more recreational lands like the national parks
and then maybe some of the military lands that need to be managed, then gradually got
into the actual land management agencies like the Forest Service and the BLM.
Another policy issue that has greatly affected land management, not only here in Logan
Canyon but worldwide, and that’s been the relative decline in the availability of research
monies. The money available to do land management research has gradually gone down.
BP:
From a high point of when?
TB:
Oh, I don’t know – I’d have to look at the data. But my feeling is it probably had a better
balance along in the late ‘80s and then we had before; I know if you throw in
international land management research as well as local. But for a long time a lot of the
research money for land management came through the state experiment stations and
came as earmarked money to go to land management. And gradually they switched from
money tied to specific land research to competitive research –
BP:
Competitive grants.
TB:
Competitive grants with the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health
and those sorts of things. That is not bad in itself; in fact I think it’s good that we have
competitive research and the best researchers getting the money. But what that did, it lead
to a different kind of research many times, than the kind that needed to be done. Where
the old state experiment station money came through, you’d be looking at a specific
problem that would be dealt with on a given area. And you were expected to develop
principles out of that, but also address what was happening on the land there.
Let me give you an example of some of the old time research that was done under that
that is not being done now. I talked about Art Smith and Larry Stoddart earlier. Some of
the work that they did up around summer camp and Logan Canyon and over to Hardware
Ranch and that area in Blacksmith Fork Canyon was looking at the use of animals and
their diets and a combination of stock.
They came up with principles that if you put more than one class of animals on a
rangeland that you make more efficient use of it; that it makes better sense to have cattle,
sheep, deer, elk because each of them have different grazing habits. And so you can have
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�more total biomass with animals that eat different kinds of plants than you have alone.
And so they were able to do that kind of work with money for specific science, though
the principle came out of it. They did that back in – I don’t know, it was before I came
here in ’59, so I’d say in the mid-50s sometime – they did it, published it, it’s quoted all
around the world, even today. Some of this common-use grazing sort of stuff.
When I came back here in 1970 as Dean, one of the first meetings I attended was the
Forest Service had called a public meeting on the allotment up around Tony Grove. They
wanted to switch to a common-use allotment up there. It was being grazed by cattle only
and they wanted to bring in –
BP:
The Forest Service wanted to, or the permittees wanted to?
TB:
The Forest Service wanted to. The permittees weren’t too happy about it because they
were cattle people. Several of the environmental groups just opposed it greatly. I
remember standing up on the hill there with all the Forest Service and these groups. I was
new back in town. And one of the people from one of the environmental groups said,
“We want to postpone this until you do some studies to show whether this will happen or
not.” And I pointed across the valley over there from where we were standing and said,
“Back in the 1950s Stoddart and Smith did some studies over there that proves the point
that it’s better for the land to put a combination of animals up here. Go to the literature
and find out what’s been done.” They still wouldn’t hear it, they had to set up their own
study to find out.
BP:
And did they do a study?
TB:
No, I don’t think so. I don’t think they ever put the sheep up there. I haven’t seen them. I
think, you know they were just able to block it. But my point is that the principles, many
of the principles that we need have already been done and in the old literature, and if you
can bring that out and bring it up to date, you don’t need to do a lot more research.
BP:
Do you find that the profession now is reluctant to look back at the older studies?
TB:
I’m not sure whether they are or not. I wouldn’t want to make that accusation that they’re
reluctant to look back. I think it’s more likely that the people who are making the
decisions have not had the culture of managing the land and looking back at the studies.
They may have come out of another field entirely – Sociology (and we need Sociologists,
I’m not arguing that), but something that is not dealing with the ecology of the land and
so there is a tendency not to look back then.
BP:
Um-hmm. I’m going to pause this for just a second.
[Stop and start recording]
BP:
Alright we had just a little interruption there. Okay we’re back talking about – what were
we talking about? [Laughing]
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�TB:
Well I guess we were talking about management up Logan Canyon and what’s happened
up there. And in the break I mentioned that when I first came here in 1959 and before I
had to teach summer camp, Stoddart had told me that I should get with some of the old
timers and look at a lot of the work that had been done. And I spent a lot of time with
several people – Ranger MJ who died last year, and some of the people ARS people and
looking at exclosures all over what’s now Logan Canyon drainage. And there were lots of
exclosures that had been put in by various agencies up there. And the area outside were
grazed off completely and you could look at the vegetation inside that should be there
now. Now you go back to those same exclosures and there’s very little difference
between what’s inside and out so the area has improved a lot.
What you could do as far as experimenting with the land has changed a lot too. One of
the early, I guess it was the first year that I taught up at summer camp Wayne Cook had a
study that he wanted to look at the use of various herbicides in controlling Wyethia this
plant that comes out in the spring with a yellow flower that you see that’s characteristic
of overgrazed ranges. There’s a whole big swath of it just above summer camp up there.
And he had a grant that looked at control of it using several different kinds of herbicides.
And instead of going back away from the road where people couldn't see it, he had the
airplanes fly from the top of the hill to the road so you could see the various strips. And
of course it killed out the aspens and Wyethia and other things. But he was very proud of
this and he put up a sign of what he was doing up there to improve the land by killing out
these noxious plants (they weren’t necessarily noxious, but the invading plants). And we
wouldn’t dare do that now. In fact, herbicides are banned from the land, but even if they
weren’t the Forest Service would insist that you’d have to get out of the viewscape and so
on.
BP:
You would not be putting it on with an airplane either probably.
TB:
No. Well in some areas they still do – or maybe a helicopter or something else. But that
same area that he flew the herbicides on has been burned at least twice since then by
Forest Service personnel with controlled burning, trying to control the aspen or keep the
aspen young and re-sprouting in that area. Wayne did it with herbicides and got rid of the
Wyethia at the same time.
BP:
Yeah.
TB:
Also where you go over the summit going to Brigham City on the highway down here,
off to the left right at the summit that whole hillside was covered with Wyethia and
Wayne went up there and spelled out “weed experiment” with his herbicide. And it was
visible until about the time I retired. In 1990 you could no longer see the bare ground, but
what you saw grasses that spelled “weed experiment” and there were these flowering
yellow plants all around it. In the spring you could see that.
BP:
What are your thoughts on those kind of programs? What are your thoughts on
herbicides?
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�TB:
I use them on the lawn for dandelions but I don’t think that they belong on the public
lands, except in very severe and restricted cases where you can’t do something else. I
think that most of what we need to be doing with public and private land is to use the
principles of ecology and natural phenomena to manage the land. And herbicides should
only be used where it’s not practical to do otherwise. And then, you know you have to
know what you’re doing. You just shouldn’t use herbicides to kill plants, you need to
know what effect it’s going to have on the connections that I talked about earlier – the
bacteria, the plants, the animals are all connected.
BP:
Do you think we overuse [inaudible] over a certain period of time because it was easy?
TB:
Yeah, it’s easy. The sins of herbicides are not necessarily that they mess up the
environment so much because most of them break down fairly quickly. But the main
problem with them is again a principle thing – when you used it you generally used it for
a specific, single case. And that case, if it succeeds may mess up the rest of the system.
You know it’s not so much the toxicity of the use – though that’s important in some time
– but it’s how it breaks the connection, how it changes the whole system. And this
happens when you start dealing with single uses. You know I think a classic in that and
we talked about earlier about the poplar trees in Cache Valley – this government project
to pay for getting rid of vegetation started because an economics professor down in
Arizona did a calculation (he didn’t actually kill the vegetation) but showed that if you
killed all the vegetation on the watershed that you could increase water flow by (I don’t
remember what) five-fold or something.
BP:
Is this the Salt Cedar down –
TB:
No it was not just Salt Cedar. This was – I forget the economist’s name – but it made all
the papers. People said, you know water is always the short resource in arid lands, “we
need to get rid of all this useless vegetation that’s using it.” Well trees are exorbitant
users of water and certainly poplar trees are. And so the government put in programs that
you could pay people to get rid of vegetation. They killed out all the big Cottonwoods
down in Arizona along the streams there that had great use beyond just using water, as far
as keeping the ecosystem managed. But they killed them out just to get more water. And
it took us a couple of decades to find out that we were doing something wrong. Well my
point here is that any time you go in with a surgical strike for one particular use –
whether it’s to increase water yield or make more grazing for livestock or to increase
teddy bears, or whatever else – that you’re going to get in trouble because you’re not
looking at all the interactions that are taking place.
BP:
Isn’t that where the discipline of natural resource management comes in?
TB:
Yes!
BP:
I mean isn’t that essentially what you teach, isn’t it?
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�TB:
Yes. You mentioned earlier, accused me of becoming more philosophical and branching
out into everything. The big core of resource management is ecology; looking at the
health of the system. And if you get the health of the system, whether you call it a cattle
range or a forest or fisheries that produce big trout, the principles of ecology are very
important. And if you start looking at how are we going to get more big fish out of the
pond, you’re likely to screw up the whole thing. You need to look at how you manage the
whole system.
The same way if you start looking at the landscape we’ve been talking about up Logan
Canyon simply as a place to graze livestock, you’re in trouble at the very start because
the objective should be to keep that landscape healthy and to keep it useful so that
whatever uses we decide to make of it we can make of it. And whatever use we decide
we want to make, we should make certain that it won’t destroy or cut out options for
people in the future. There are some places that you almost have to do that. For instance
if you open up a gravel pit here up Logan Canyon you’re going to probably change that
particular spot to where it can’t be brought back just by good ecological management –
that you have to do something on these drastically disturbed landscapes. Same thing if
you graze a range too long and you lose the soil on it; you change it to where you’ve got
to maybe do some rehabilitation of some sort. But otherwise you work with nature rather
than against it.
BP:
So nature’s pretty adaptive and – what’s the word I’m looking for? – it will come back.
TB:
No. I think one of the big mistakes that we have made in my generation of natural
resource managers is to teach, or at least mis-teach, to where people picked up on this
idea that if you do something bad to the land – whether you over-farm it or over-graze it
or burn it too much or cut timber off of it – that all you need to do is to back off and it
will come back. That’s not true. We used to think it was.
In fact, I mentioned that Stoddart came out of the Nebraska School of Ecology – that was
one thing that Clements taught and one of the main things we call “Clementsian
Paradigm of Ecology” that succession starts from bare rock and gets to a climax and then
uses force it back down that chain, you take the use off and nature will bring it back. We
now know that that doesn’t happen. But a lot of people – and they teach it in grade
schools and so on – believe that that will happen. That if you just stop doing the bad
things it will take care of itself.
It would if you hadn’t changed the system. But as I mentioned earlier with the soils
washed away, if the climate has changed during that period of time or if the conditions
are different, you’ve got a whole different system. And now we talk about states and
transitions and thresholds that if you force land through use – these dry farms over here
on the west side of the valley – if you stopped farming them now with the subsoil
showing on them and so on, they won’t come back to the same palouse, prairie-like
vegetation that was there when the pioneers first came in.
BP:
Right.
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�TB:
They’ll come back to a bunch of weeds and other things. So you’ve got to be careful with
this thing that nature will take care of itself. It will, it will stabilize the ground but it
won’t be the same sort of a community at all. The same uses won’t be available.
BP:
Where would you date that change in philosophy? In Clements idea – the coming to grips
with the idea that yeah, you can screw nature up to the point that it won’t always come
back at the climax.
TB:
It’s been around a long time but it really wasn’t accepted. Actually a British ecologist
named Tansley, probably in the 1930s was talking about this sort of thing. And then
Odum in his book in the ‘50s wrote something similar. But it wasn’t generally accepted
until -- must’ve been about the ‘70s or ‘80s. Some Australian scientists really challenged
the Clementsian Paradigm. They were looking at much broader problems – you know,
broader landscapes than we have here where they have ranching properties that they have
over there that they call “stations” that are half as big as the state of Nebraska. And so
you’re looking at different sorts of things. And they noticed the old Clementsian
Paradigm didn’t work.
We’d also noticed that here. I’d first noticed it when I came to the mountains. I had been
trained in the prairies where that Clementsian system works fairly well. You come here to
the mountains, there is a different eco-system on the north slopes and the south slopes;
there’s different ones between different kinds of areas within the mountains. So we knew
it didn’t work, but nobody had really worked out the principles and thought it through
until this Australian group (led by a South African really) started looking at it and starting
publishing in the literature. And then it came back into this country. And we’re still
arguing about it. There are people in the land management profession that would get very
angry with what I’ve said about that nature doesn’t bring places back if you just quit
using it. So we’re in that process of change now.
Just as a sideline, when I was in Australia in January, I had a yarn with Margaret Friedel
who is one of the scientists over there that was involved in that and interviewed her and
wrote an article for Rangelands or let her write it; just published her comments about
how they developed this concept and started early in there. We know now more than we
did. We still don’t know really how to manage the new concepts that are coming in
because we know that you can change a site so much that it will never come back to what
it was before, but how do we get it back? And I think what you do is really establish the
interconnections as much as you can and then maybe nature can take it back. But it will
be a different community than what you had there originally.
BP:
Nature itself can alter sites to the point where -- I mean is the landscape ever stationary?
Is it ever static?
TB:
No, of course not. You know one of the things that amuses me and irritates me and I get
mad at is just looking at the letters to the editor in the Herald Journal of people arguing
over climate change! [Laughing] Of course the climate changes! It changes all the time.
It’s not the same now, and that’s one of the main things in “nature” if you want to say, or
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�whatever, that the system adjusts to the changes. And most of the time it’s slow.
Sometimes you get a drought that will come on and maybe for a period of 50, 30, 60, 10
years and then change back. Or it may be a general trend. I became a natural resource
manager because of the drought of the ‘50s. I always wanted to be a rancher and the
drought of the ‘50s made my dad go broke and I went to college to learn how to be a
scientist. I never went back to the land. I’m getting off the subject.
Your question was does the landscape change with nature? Of course it does and we have
all sorts of examples. You can go up in the mountains and look at the fossils and see that
it has changed dramatically. And the argument over whether it’s man-caused or not is
also as silly as the one that some people saying we don’t have climate change. Well we
do. We could argue over the direction it’s going.
And whether it’s man-caused is argued. If you look at my field, range management, and
in any place in the western United States when it was opened up for grazing, we killed
out the Indians and the buffalo. Within three decades of the time it came here (and I’ve
got data that show it happened in the plains, it happened in Salt Lake) – within three
decades of when human beings came in with their grazing animals the land was
overgrazed. One system after the other came in. Now that was man-caused. And we can
show that the dust bowl of the 1930s was because of over-plowing and overgrazing. It
was exacerbated by drought. Sure, drought came in there but the erosion was mancaused. So to argue that humans don’t change landscapes make no more sense than the
climate doesn’t change. So I read these passionate letters to the editor about climate
change, I think, “These people don’t know what they’re talking about.”
BP:
So the land is really more fragile, I mean it can be changed easily?
TB:
It can be changed easily. I don’t think land is fragile. That’s one of the ways of thinking –
and there are some ecologists that disagree with me. You see a lot of times they talk
about ecosystems being fragile. They’re very resilient.
BP:
That is the word I was looking for a minute ago, Thad! Resilient.
TB:
They take a lot of change and come back. There are some systems that are fragile and
there are some resilent systems – and it usually shows up in what their evolutionary past
was. If you get a vegetation type that evolved in the absence of a large grazer – we see
more of them in Australia than we do here (but there are some places that if you look
back the fossil records you know they’d never had a big grazing animal on there) – they
tend to be more fragile and their vegetation will die out sooner when you start grazing it
and be less apt to come back and you’ll get another type of vegetation coming in. But I
don’t see the land as fragile. It takes a lot of abuse and it has an amazing regenerative
power.
One of the things that humbles me as a biologist is the regenerative power that occurs in
all systems. I don’t know what your wound history is, and don’t want to know, but you
can cut yourself, you can get shot in the army, and there are all sorts of things, and you
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�get well. They even note examples of where you’ve grown whole new vein systems for
some reason and they don’t know until after they do the autopsy that you’ve done your
own natural bypass. There’s great regenerative ability in natural systems. So, again, I’m
getting off the subject.
BP:
I think it’s all connected. I think your point that you’re trying to make is that there’s a
connection between the land, between humans, between animals; and again, it’s the
ecologist in you, right?
TB:
Yeah, I guess it’s the ecologist in me. I guess I’m very fortunate in that being trained in
that and working – well I know I’m fortunate to having a good job for many years in
ecology. But I was very fortunate to be raised on the land from the beginning. You know,
to be a kid outdoors and observing things that happened and wondering about them.
And sometimes it got me in trouble, you know. When I was a kid my uncle, who was a
year older than I, used to catch lizards and hook them up to old Prince Albert tobacco
cans and work them as a team. And we noticed that their tails would break off very
easily, but they could re-grow a tail. Well I had a great uncle that had his arm shot off in
World War I and one day I asked my granddad if God would let lizards grow a new tail,
why can’t Albert grow a new arm? Well that got me in trouble! [Laughing] I was being
blasphemous, questioning God and a whole bunch of things. And I don’t think I’m
unique. I think kids want to know answers to those questions. I talked about my grandkid
wanting to put batteries in the butterfly. Why can’t man grow an arm?
BP:
Well that’s the questioning nature of humans.
TB:
Yeah.
BP:
Why we’re out to discover things.
TB:
Another thing that may be off the point, but one of my opportunities in my career was to
work in Somalia before there was much –
[Stop and start recording]
[Tape 2 of 2: B]
BP:
We just turned the tape over and Thad was about to tell a story when he was in Somalia.
TB:
Yeah. The reason I’m bringing this story up to relate it to land management on national
forests is how very primitive people sometimes understand the connections and nature
much better than many of our professionals. I had the opportunity to work in Somalia in
1967 when there was only 85 miles of tarmac road in the whole country. And being out
with the nomads, many nights I spent in nomad camps.
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�One of the things I was trying to do was to build a checklist of plants and find out what
the plants were used for. I had a checklist that an old British biologist had made many
years ago. It had the Somali name and the genus and species and that was all. And I was
struggling trying to key the plants out with a key that wasn’t working very well. Our cook
who was with our project starting telling me the Somali names of the plants. And it
turned out that he’s been herding camel since he was 12 years old. I could ask him any
question I wanted to about a plant; he could tell me its Somali name. He could tell me
what kind of soil it grew on, how soon it came up after the rain. And he wasn’t unique.
The people that took care of the camels and grazed them there knew that sort of
knowledge. They learned it out there. And they’d learned the inter-relationships between
them: when you could graze and keep the vegetation going.
I was taking notes as fast as I could and once I got the Somali name I’d get the Latin
name. And essentially he wrote my report for me. This kid had grown up out there. And
my point being that anyone who spends a long time out on the land – watching camels or
herding sheep, or just out there hunting deer or whatever else – if they’re observing it all.
They see these connections and begin to make connections together. And then if you
suddenly find a theory or a system that ties them together, you’re very happy.
Art Smith used to tell the story about Ray Becraft who started the program here. Becraft
came through Utah State, studied with James Jardine and then took over the program
with just his baccalaureate degree, like they used to. And he was teaching forestry and so
on. I don’t know whether he got a grant or how he was able to do it, but he was able to go
to the University of Chicago where the famous ecologist Cowles developed this system
of succession or described this system succession.
Well Art Smith said that Becraft told him that when he started hearing those theories of
Professor Cowles his head hurt. He couldn’t go to sleep at night because he was relating
them to what he had seen all his life in the hills in Utah, and the grazing in Utah and so
on. So here was a kid, you know, 1500 miles away who got back there and he he ran into
something that caused him to tie all that he’d observed all his life – herding sheep or
whatever he did – together.
BP:
Now where was Ray Becraft from originally, do you know?
TB:
He was from Brigham City, I believe. Yeah, I’m pretty sure he was from Brigham City.
And he came here and did his work here. And he worked with Cowles off and on then for
a number of years. In fact some of the documents I think I got in Special Collection when
I was looking at the history of our college, I found that Cowles came out here and taught
summer camp a couple of years.
BP:
He was here for summer school in 1924 I know.
TB:
Yeah.
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�BP:
And probably other years too.
TB:
Yeah. And so that connection very early between the people here who were developing
the curriculum and land management and the best theoretical ecologist in America at the
time, it wasn’t an accident that this university developed that sort of tie. It goes right back
to those roots.
BP:
Pretty interesting. Yeah, that summer school that they established in the 1920s was – they
had the biggest names – it was a stroke of genius. I mean it really was because these were
professors that didn’t teach during the summer and they offer them a nice stipend to come
out here and it was a good climate in the summer.
TB:
And you have those documents in Special Collections?
BP:
We do.
TB:
I want to come up and dig through those because I think that’s really, right there is the
key to the early culture of this College of Natural Resources. It started one generation
before Becraft, with the Jardine brothers. They were from Cherry Creek, Idaho and came
down here. And I think one of them majored in Math and the other in English or
something. I know one of the Jardine’s taught English here. But they also started putting
together this concept of natural resource management.
BP:
They did.
TB:
Mainly I think because of the watershed problems; the hills washing down. And they
were looking at – and the one that studied Engineering was more interested in that. But
then when Jardine left, Ray Becraft came in and he studied and teaching. He taught
forestry, he taught range management, he taught watershed management -- all in 1918.
And then with his tie with Cowles and the theoretical ecologist it gradually developed
into what it is today.
BP:
Yeah. Very interesting history with how that came together –
TB:
Well I shouldn’t be talking to an historian about this –
BP:
Well, yeah but you were part of it!
TB:
You know there are two things that I am interested in: in biology and natural resources
history certainly is important. But it’s not just the history of genes, it’s also the history of
memes. And when Dawkins came up with this memes concept of the unit of cultural
transfer –
BP:
You’re going to have to define that for me. I’m not familiar with it.
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�TB:
Okay. “Memes” is a term developed by the biologist Richard Dawkins who has just
published this book that there is no god or something –
BP:
Oh, okay. Um-hmm.
TB:
A great, famous theoretical biologist. He came up with a concept called “Memes” (m-em-e-s) where he said that there was a unit of cultural transmission – that you could
transfer beliefs and values from one generation to the other. And that they were as
important as the genes in determining what the culture would be like. And that speaks
very loudly to me. And I think it speaks to people that work with land management, even
though most of them don’t know it because that’s not a concept that is normally taught in
biology courses.
That there are stories, most of these have gone through mother to child and learning and
stories taught around campfires and whatever, but it’s the memes that are passed on are as
important for a school as the genes. You’ve got to be able to pass on the passion, the
dedication. And I think one of the things that’s wrong with our country now (it’s not
wrong, I mean it’s just happening with our country that we’ve got to correct) is that we
aren’t passing on the values that make us a stronger, more democratic country. We’re
passing on values that its better to get rich than it is to serve your fellow man.
BP:
Right.
TB:
And so that is – and I’m way off the subject now! But that’s an important thing –
BP:
Well let me tell you – you know who John Widtsoe was?
TB:
Yeah.
BP:
He was the president here and the dry farm expert. But anyway, I just saw a letter that he
wrote to a former student who had been here, in which he congratulated him on his
graduation and his new employment (and I forget where he’d been hired, but some place
out of state) and told him to always bear in mind his responsibility as a college man, his
responsibility for the public good, and not to be overwhelmed with seeking money. And
that was his advice to this young graduate. I mean that’s – and you know you would
never hear that, you would never hear that. And of course that was a hundred years ago, it
was 1908. I think that’s important.
TB:
Well I had that drummed into me with family and with these mentors that I mentioned
(Clarence Cottam, Vernon Young, Larry Stoddart, Smith) – all, you know, that it was
important to serve. And that was the reason that I went into this, was to make the world
better. And if you’re going to interview (I see the list) some of the people that I taught
they may tell stories about me because that was one of the things that I always did was try
to drum into them.
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�In fact, many of the classes that I started when I was teaching in what was then the new
Forestry building (the one that’s now the Natural Resource Biology building). The
windows in the classroom faced the mountain. And on the first day of class I’d tell them
to get up and walk out and go look at that mountain. And then I’d tell them that their job
was to make that mountain better. And it’s corny, but it’s important. It’s important that
we feel value, or value what we do and that it will help change the world.
BP:
And do you see that as missing in the educational, in the curriculum today?
TB:
Yeah. Well, no I won’t say that it’s missing because there are people that do it. But this
generation, and the generations are different. And they have different ways of looking at
how to make the world better. You know, I’m sure that some of them believe that the
way to make the world better is to get very wealthy and then you can spend it making the
world better or something else. But I don’t see the general emphasis on that you’re here
to learn how to serve the general public; you’re here to make the community stronger.
There’s a lot more “it’s all about me.” I’ve noticed this, in fact I’ve been thinking about
writing up the change in the generations.
When I started teaching in 1959, most of the kids there were not kids, but young men (no
young women there), they’re young men and most of them were veterans of the Korean
War. I was a veteran of the Korean War and we’re about the same age. They were there
to get a job, work out on the forest and make the land better. You know and improve their
status in life. Most of them came off the farm, didn’t have any idea of ever being wealthy.
Their idea was to get a job where they could do something useful.
And then in the 1970s – we talked about this earlier – there was this idealism that swept
that whole generation of the ‘70s, that you know, we’ve got to do something better. And
they were obsessed on the threat of the bomb, the war. And the Vietnam War closed
down. But we still had the bomb.
So the generation of the ‘60s became the “me” generation; “I want to get mine.” And
Rambo ruled, you know. They were big. They were tough! That was what that
generation was all about.
BP:
The generation of the ‘80s.
TB:
Yeah, yeah. I said ‘60s – the generation of the ‘80s, I’m sorry. The generation of the ‘70s
was this make the world happy and everything’s going to be alright and then after the
Vietnam War it was the “Rambo Rule” time and I was going to get mine while it’s good.
And then the generation of the ‘90s (and that was the last generation that I really taught)
was a real mixed bag. Some people wanted to get back to the serve their world (and a lot
of Peace Corps volunteers and so on came through) but the others were wanting to, you
know get ahead quickly and make a lot of money. And so it was a mixed bag and I can’t
follow through on it.
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�But if you look back now at our leaders, most of them are coming out of that ‘60s
generation – that the whole idea was to get mine while the getting’s good because the
bomb’s over us and we’re liable not to be here anyway. And I think it’s affected us all the
way through society. It’s a long ways around of answering your question of whatever it
was – I don’t remember! [Laughing]
BP:
Yeah. I think, you know, we are what we’ve been taught and our culture. And I’ve found
that – how do you say that again?
TB:
Memes.
BP:
Memes.
TB:
M-e-m-e-s. Google “Richard Dawkins” and “memes” and you’ll –
BP:
I’ll put in “Dawkins.”
TB:
Yeah.
BP:
I think we’ve covered most of this. The one thing I didn’t ask you is a part from religious
zeal for the land are you a practicing religionist?
TB:
No. I’m an atheist.
BP:
Um-hmm. Okay, that answers that!
TB:
[Laughing] I wasn’t always. I was raised in very fundamentalist Christian church from a
long series of Methodist preachers.
BP:
Uh-huh.
TB:
My sister’s just been working on our genealogy and I didn’t realize how many Methodist
preachers there were. I was raised in that tradition. My first stint in Utah I taught the
Presbyterian Sunday School for college-age students. Had all the black people on campus
in my Sunday school because they were brought down there by Charles Belcher who was
going to make sure that Cornell Green and Willie Redmond and all those guys went to
church! [Laughing]
BP:
Did you find that it was out of a degree of real soul searching when you finally decided
that you did not have a belief in God, or was that something that you perhaps carried with
you for some time and you just finally came to the realization?
TB:
I think it just gradually grew on me. It was hard to admit it.
BP:
You’re carrying a lot of these cultural things.
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�TB:
Yeah. Because you know, it was so much a part of my life. And I taught Sunday school, I
was a ruling elder in both the Southern and the Northern Presbyterian churches for many
years. And I guess where I finally decided to be honest and come out of the closet was
that if there is a God and the god is not omnipotent then it is no god. And if there is an
omnipotent god and he lets the world get as screwed up as it is, he’s inefficient or
incompetent! So it makes no sense to believe in a god. This is the first time anybody’s
ever recorded that I’ve said it. I don’t go around telling people they shouldn’t believe in
God, that’s their business.
BP:
No reason to.
TB:
But for me it doesn’t work. And I guess a very personal thing may have been what put
me over the hump on this, My mother died a long, nine year agonizing death with
Alzheimer’s disease. She was one of the most Christian people I ever knew. One of the
most giving, selfless people I ever knew. So if there was anybody that God ought to have
treated right it would have been her. And you know, if there’d been a god that was
omnipotent, why would he let that happen? It just makes no sense.
BP:
Yeah, there are questions you can only answer two ways. One is that there must not be,
and the other I don’t know how people – people do deal with that. But there is a certain
morality that comes out of the Christian traditions and you don’t hear them talk much
about it in this day and age. But you talk about your mother and having that Christian – is
that anything that carries over?
TB:
Oh yes! And Bob I don’t deny at all, I am a cultural Christian. I am a Christian,
culturally.
BP:
Well I am a cultural Mormon. [Laughing]
TB:
Yeah, well I’ve run into a lot of them that way. I’m a cultural Christian and most of the
teachings of the New Testament I buy into because they’re good socially. But that’s
entirely different from saying that I believe in a god.
BP:
Sure.
TB:
I believe in the actions and the body and some of that. And you mentioned that there were
two choices: “I don’t know” or “there is no God.” I’m a scientist so you know, you set up
any sort of null hypothesis and you can’t find that there is a god. So you know, I’m much
more comfortable saying that I’m an atheist than I am saying that I’m an agnostic. And as
I say, I don’t go around talking this or preaching because I’m a cultural Christian and I’m
proud of my Christianity. But I’m not going to believe in God, that a god did it.
BP:
We are, like I said, we’re the sum of everything we’ve gained up to this point in our lives,
and so I’m sure it’s affected you –
TB:
Yeah, and it’s affected me mainly in my association with my fellow human beings.
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�BP:
Sure.
TB:
I’ve never thought about this and I’ll think about it after we turn this off, I’m not sure
how my Christianity and the evolution through the Christianity has affected my
relationship to the land, or if it did at all. It certainly reflected my attitude toward using
the land, but it still very much anthropomorphic. If you notice all the time that I talked
about uses it was for human beings’ good. And that’s part of who I am. I grow crops or
whatever because people need to eat. And I got into the profession of agriculture before I
did into ecology and the reason was I got in to feed a hungry world. That was very much
sort of a missionary thing – to get out and feed a hungry world.
BP:
Is there anything else you’d like to add right now Thad?
TB:
No, if you think of anything talk’s cheap! I’d be glad to visit with you.
BP:
I think there’s much more you’ve got to say.
TB:
Well I think we didn’t get into what I thought was this was mainly about was the effects
of policy on management. And it’s in there but it’s sort of – we can look at that again.
And like I say, I’m willing to talk anytime. I enjoy it.
BP:
I enjoyed it too.
TB:
Well thank you.
BP:
Thank you very much sir.
[Stop recording]
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Text
About this collection:
By Thad Box
Logan Canyon runs east from the lush Cache Valley, which supported Shoshone families for
hundreds of years. Beavers raised their broods in the streams and marshes. The first Europeans,
mountain men and fur traders, gave rivers and canyons French names. Mormon pioneers
established farms and towns in the valley, cut mountain forests for lumber and railroad ties,
developed dairies and beef herds in the canyon. Landless, migratory sheepmen brought flocks
from afar. By the late 1800s, the land in canyons and mountains was barren. Sheep herds could
be counted from Logan by the clouds of dust they raised. Logan River and its tributaries were
polluted by silt and debris.
Utah Agricultural College was established in 1888 as Utah's land grant school. The Cache
National Forest was created in 1902 at the request of local citizens who feared mudslides from
denuded lands. These local citizens wanted the landscape rehabilitated. For the next 100 years
scientists, engineers and land managers conducted research, applied what was learned and rebuilt
the abused land. In so doing, hundreds of scientists, scholars, land managers and local citizens
helped reclaim the areas in and around Logan Canyon into a special place of beauty. They
gradually rebuilt its productivity. Hundreds of thousands of people come through the canyon
each year. The canyon has become more than a beautiful mountain canyon; it is a part of people's
lives and an icon of their culture.
Some of the earliest work at Utah Agricultural College and the Utah Agricultural Experiment
Station was stabilizing land to prevent landslides and improving overgrazed and overcut
mountains. Curricula were developed in the emerging fields of forestry, ecology, range
management, watershed management and environmental engineering. Managers were trained in
Utah, but worked worldwide. Academic units in the College of Natural Resources and the water
program developed reputations for land care. Their research was applied all over the world.
In an effort to document these efforts, Special Collections and Archives in the Merrill-Cazier
Library have the personal and professional papers of many of the scientists and land managers
who helped rebuild Logan Canyon. More are being added. These collections form a valuable
reference for anyone interested in land management and policy. These include papers from
pioneer academics such as Laurence Stoddart and Arthur Smith, forest ecologist Lincoln Ellison
and forest manager William Hurst.
Beginning in 2008, Utah State University’s Special Collections & Archives, the Mountain West
Center for Regional Studies and the College of Natural Resources Department of Environment
and Society collaborated to collect the oral histories of key land use managers and users. Trained
interviewers from The Logan Canyon Land Use Management Project gathered oral histories of
people who have worked in or enjoyed the Canyon during the last century. In these interviews,
available in audio and transcript form, people talk about what Logan Canyon meant to them. The
stories of ranchers, recreationists, scientists, activists, scholars, foresters and sheepherders add
cultural depth to the work of scientists, engineers and academics. This growing collection of oral
histories and personal papers from those who have worked in Logan Canyon is fast becoming a
major resource for others interested in rehabilitation, land management and policy. These oral
recollections form a basis for understanding policy in one area. Principles from them can be
applied to broader land areas.
�
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/109">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/109</a>
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Hosted by: Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library
Conversion Specs
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Transcription equipment: Power Player Transcription Software: Executive Communication Systems
Date Digital
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2012-10-16
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Title
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Thad Box interviews, 21 March 2008 and 1 April 2008, transcriptions, color photograph
Description
An account of the resource
The first interview covers Thad Box’s early years in Texas and his education. The interview was a demonstration of interview techniques by Elaine Thatcher to members of the Land Use Management Oral History Project members, including Brad Cole, Randy Williams, Barbara Middleton, Bob Parson and Glenda Nesbit. The second interview contains some childhood and pre-college influences of Thad Box. He speaks of his education, mentors, and of his subsequent career as a natural resource professor. Box speaks about his philosophy on ecology and land management practices, the development of natural resource management principles and how they may be extended and applied beyond land management. He talks about the importance of people to have access to nature.
Creator
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Box, Thadis W.
Contributor
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Thatcher, Elaine
Subject
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Box, Thadis W.--Interviews
Box, Thadis W.--Family
Utah State University--Faculty--Interviews
Agricultural education--Texas
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Recreation--Utah--Logan Canyon
Mormons--Social conditions
Rob and Bessie Welder Wildlife Foundation
Cottam, Clarence, 1899-
Glazener, Caleb
Young, Vernon A. (Vernon Alphus), 1894-1973
Range management--Study and teaching
United States. Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944
Canyons--Utah--Cache County--Psychological aspects
Solitude--Utah--Logan Canyon
Public lands--Utah--Logan Canyon
Stoddart, L. A. (Laurence Alexander), 1909-1968
Smith, Arthur D. (Arthur Dwight), 1907-1993
Restoration ecology--Utah--Logan Canyon
Grazing--Utah--Logan Canyon
Land use--Utah--Logan Canyon
United States. Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act of 1960
Sustainability
Privatization--Law and legislation--United States
Range management--Research
Cultural landscapes
Land research
Rangelands--Revegetation
Utah State University. Forestry Field Station Camp
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
Oral histories
Interviews
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Llano County (Texas)
Cache County (Utah)
Australia
Somalia
Blacksmith Fork Canyon (Utah)
Hardware Ranch (Utah)
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Tony Grove (Utah)
Utah
United States
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
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1920-1929
1930-1939
1940-1949
1950-1959
1960-1969
1970-1979
1980-1989
20th century
Language
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eng
Source
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections &
Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 2 Fd. 4 &
5
Is Referenced By
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Inventory for the Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection can be found at: <a href="http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php">http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php</a>
Rights
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of the USU Fife Folklore Archives Curator, phone (435) 797-3493
Is Part Of
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Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection
Type
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Sound
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audio/mp3
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FolkColl42bx2ThadisBox
Date Created
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21 March 2008
1 April 2008
Date Modified
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2008-03-21
2008-04-01
Is Version Of
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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http://highway89.org/files/original/87f27be5fc4b44715c9e736513b021d3.mp3
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LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Katherine Gilbert
Place of Interview: 1636 Sunset Drive Logan, UT
Date of Interview: 8 April 2008
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Barbara Middleton
Barbara Middleton
Recording Equipment:
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Radio Shack Cassette Recorder: CTR-122
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Susan Gross
Kathy Gilbert [who made some additions] and Barbara Middleton;
Randy Williams (29 June 2011)
Brief Description of Contents: Katherine Gilbert briefly talks about her childhood in Canada
and fond memories of outdoor experiences in her youth. She discusses her college education and
subsequent jobs and training, and then speaks about influences as an adult which inspired her to
be proactive toward protecting the natural beauties surrounding her residence. She discusses the
formation of the Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon [CPLC] and her role within the
organization. She talks about the CPLC’s part in the planning of improvements and expansion of
the highway and bridges in Logan Canyon.
Reference:
BM = Barbara Middleton (Interviewer; Interpretive Specialist,
Environment & Society Dept., USU College of Natural Resources)
KG = Katherine Gilbert
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with
brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 1: A]
BM:
This is Barbara Middleton and this is tape one, side one on Logan Canyon Land Use
Management Oral History Project. We’re here with Katherine Gilbert at 1636 Sunset
Drive in Logan, Utah. And it is Tuesday April 8, 2008. Katherine, would you introduce
yourself?
KG:
Yes. It’s a pleasure to do this Barbara. I’m going to use the cheat sheet here and look at
the questions. Did you want to ask me the questions first, or did you want me to just refer
to them?
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�BM:
Go ahead and just refer to them, that’s fine.
KG:
Okay.
[Reading question to self] What is your background and please describe your schooling,
training in your field?
Well I have a had a love affair with Utah since 1976 when my husband and I and two
children returned to Logan after my husband having had the opportunity to spend a year
and a half here as a post-doc. When we came here he was in the Department of Fisheries
and Wildlife in the College of Natural Resources and I was a mom at home. And of
course we just absolutely adored having Logan Canyon at our back door, and we partook
of many activities in the canyon; whether it was hiking in the fall or in the spring or
skiing at Beaver Mountain in the winter, and ultimately cross-country skiing.
My background is that I had an undergraduate degree in the hard sciences from Queens
University. And by hard science I meant it was mainly chemistry with a little bit of
biology. After that training I worked in medical centers; first of all in Montreal –
Montreal was where I was born (Quebec, Canada), and for five years at Duke University
in an immunology research lab where they were doing some of the first kidney
transplants. After I came to Utah and my children were in school I got a master’s degree
in School Psychology. I worked for Cache County school district for approximately 20
years after getting my masters degree in school psychology. I just recently retired in June
of 2006.
[Stop recording]
BM:
Alright, we’re back on.
KG:
Okay so Barbara has asked me to say when I was born. It was 1942 in Montreal. I grew
up there. And I think that my love of the out of doors was inspired by my wonderful
summers in the Laurentian Mountains and at a wonderful lake where we swam and
boated and hiked and just literally spent every day outside.
The next part she’s asked me to add to was when I got my undergraduate degree, which
was in 1963 at Queens University, Kingston, Ontario. And after that I returned to
Montreal for a couple of years where I worked at Primary Children’s Hospital in a blood
lab, basically just doing standard analysis for medical purposes, which at that time was
not automated but was starting to be automated.
I came to the United States in 1965 and lived in North Carolina for five years, where my
husband was doing a PhD graduate degree. At that time, that’s when I worked in the
immunology lab at Duke University Medical Center which was really a booming,
growing university with a lot of funding from NIH [National Institutes of Health]. So that
was an exciting field to be in. We were looking at the basic immunology of transplants –
looking at what caused the tissue to be rejected. We were working with mice strains. I
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�worked for five years in the immunology lab and taught school for one year at Durham
Academy, a private school.
Have I answered enough of those questions?
BM:
That’s fine.
KG:
[Reading question to self] So who were some of the most influential teachers in
instructing you in your field and why were they so influential?
I can’t say that for this work that I became involved with in Logan Canyon it was
teachers, per se, but it was the outdoor experiences growing up – which was in the ‘50s
which had to be ideal because one was able to escape to the country and live the simple
life relatively easily. And so I had wonderful summers in the Laurentian Mountains. And
also being at Queens University which is on the Saint Lawrence River right where Lake
Ontario starts; and that was a lovely natural area to be able to look at every day of your
life because the university was on the lake.
BM:
Kathy, a little bit on the Laurentian Mountains – do you think you could tell us where
they are like points in between if you wanted to locate those on the map?
KG:
Yes. We were about 45 miles north of Montreal. You would head up into these rolling
hills – they’re much like the Adirondacks, they’re old, old mountains. And they’re
developed in the winter for skiing. The towns that I would have been near, close to where
our lake was, were Saint Sauveur (and those are paintings of Saint Sauveur on the wall
there; old with the horse drawn buggies and 20 years later).
BM:
We’re looking at two pictures, great winter scenes, are those oils?
KG:
Yes. And they’re done by a very well-known Canadian artist. I’ve carried those around
with me over the years to remind me of Saint Sauveur.
BM:
Wonderful. Is that somebody skating?
KG:
It’s just a kid in a toque on the street.
BM:
In a toque?
KG:
The red toque. [Knitted hat: beanie.] Houses were very brilliantly colored, painted – it’s
French Canadian.
Then from Saint Sauveur the next town was Morin Heights and that was actually an
English enclave in the Laurentians, and it still is to this day. And then Sixteen Island
Lake (which literally had 16 islands) was a beautiful lake; pristine, clear – it had no road
down it so when we went down the lake to see our friends or go to the clubhouse, one
would go on a boat (which for us was a flat-bottom rowboat with seven horsepower
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�motor on it). We went there every summer. It’s called “Lac des Seize Iles” in French and
there are some people who have lived on the lake for generations. It was a physical
landscape that you learn as a child and those memories stay with you the rest of your life.
BM:
Were there other siblings then that were with you, brothers and sisters?
KG:
Yes, I was the oldest of three so we all went as a family. So that would have been the
influence for my enchantment with the West, to come west and to see all these beautiful
open lands and running streams and the opportunity to live at the mouth of Logan
Canyon. I think when you’ve grown up in a more developed area the opportunity to live
in a more natural area is very attractive.
Okay, the next question about [reading question to self] What were your family’s land use
traditions? Were there special celebrations during the year that you remember and want
to share?
As far as Logan Canyon goes we certainly enjoyed it for hikes and walks and retreats on
the weekend, especially going skiing. It gave the children an excellent opportunity to
learn downhill skiing, which I think is a great sport at certain times in your life and a way
to meet people and be active. I think people who like the winter find a way to spend time
outside.
BM:
Is that Beaver Mountain then?
KG:
Yes, we went to Beaver Mountain.
BM:
What are other places then in the canyon that the kids really enjoyed that you went to
specifically.
KG:
I think as far as going as a family, we just did hiking – short hikes, maybe up to the Wind
Caves and that sort of thing. And then I think when the kids were in high school they
went on their own – like they could drive up. And I’m sure they had picnics. They didn’t
use the canyon a lot. We tended to leave Logan in the summer, so our recreation was
back East with our family on the Saint Lawrence River.
My hobbies and recreational pursuits are again just outdoor activities. I enjoy getting out.
And certainly as I gave up the downhill skiing I really enjoyed going to places like
Temple Fork and some of the cross-country ski trails around Beaver, before they came
inundated with snowmobilers. Wood Camp Hollow
BM:
Saint Anne’s?
KG:
Yes, but what’s the marker on the road?
[Stop and start recording]
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�KG:
Right Hand Fork was another favorite place, mainly because it was close.
(So have we finished, I think I finished that page, yes.)
[Reading question to self] To connections to Logan Canyon, what was your earliest
memory of Logan Canyon?
Well my earliest memory was the early ‘70s, probably 1970 when we actually came to
Logan, my husband had a post-doc here and we actually camped in Logan Canyon near
the Zanavoo Lodge. There is a name for that campground, but we camped there and
looked for a place to live. It’s quite dramatic driving down Logan Canyon for the first
time.
[Stop and start recording]
So it was Bridger Campground. And then of course living near the university and living
at the mouth of the canyon, you know, we went up to the lower part quite frequently just
for day walks or short walks.
BM:
And how long did you live there?
KG:
Live where?
BM:
At the campground?
KG:
Oh, we just stayed there a week or something. Yes, we just stayed there a week and
looked for housing.
BM:
Okay.
KG:
I think it was a week. I wasn’t too impressed camping with a new baby. [Laughing]
BM:
How old?
KG:
Oh about four months, I don’t know – I don’t remember. I’m trying to think when we
came. It was the end of summer I think.
BM:
So it was fairly dry.
KG:
Yes, it was dry. It was cold at night. And we were in a Volkswagen Bug with a roof rack
on and, anyway.
BM:
That’s great! [Laughing]
KG:
[Reading question to self] So in what areas of Logan Canyon were you most active?
Special places? What is your favorite place in the canyon?
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�I was most active in Temple Fork, Tony Grove, Right Hand Fork, loved the Summit for
skiing in the winter – the Sinks before all the snowmobilers went up there; Beaver
Mountain for skiing.
BM:
I can’t imagine how that area, especially, Beaver Mountain area and that Sinks area has
changed.
KG:
Oh, it’s just remarkably changed; and we can thank Doug Thompson, our Logan mayor,
for that who advertised nationally for snowmobiling in that area. And that will be another
topic, I think in your interview about the canyon and the policy and the motorized traffic
transport; the amount of canyon areas dedicated to that. But that, I think, is probably
treated better in the comment about the Forest Service management about the canyon.
BM:
Can I just ask you one question?
KG:
Sure.
BM:
Getting up there, the road has changed, but time wise how long did it take you to drive up
to a place like Beaver to go with your kids; and the road conditions at that time --?
KG:
Were excellent. It was well plowed. We would allow 45 minutes – of course in the spring
when the road is bare and dry you could maybe come home faster. When we started using
Logan Canyon it had the upgrade of the lower ten miles or whatever it is. When you start
at Logan and go up the canyon – that had always been finished when we used it. That
was in the ‘60s I think, late ‘60s that they did that.
BM:
Did the canyon ever close because of bad weather? Was that a fairly frequent-?
KG:
No. Never. Never that I remember. Let’s see now.
What are some of the major influences, obvious needs that helped you make the choice to
pursue this connection with Logan Canyon?
We obviously used it and got to know it. A turning point for me was coming back from a
sabbatical in Australia and we had had a wonderful opportunity to spend a lot of time on
the east coast and get out to the Great Barrier Reef. A few people and the beautiful areas
in Australia and it was brought home rather quickly that the people that are living in the
area are the people that are going to protect it. So part of this project is to document the
second upgrading of the road – the higher part of the canyon. And I returned to Logan
just at this time when they were making the proposals for what road modifications they
were going to make to handle the traffic better.
BM:
So what year are we talking about?
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�KG:
Well I think we’re talking about 1995, but you would want – it could be ’94, it could
have been started. I’ve had a hard time remembering – there was a lot of talk about this
road and what was going to be modified and I don’t know that, again this is the place to
talk about that. If you want to get through this questionnaire and then sort of chunk the
road development, the influence that the Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon had
on how that road was so-called “improved” and then about the land management uses -because that all kind of goes together in a bundle.
BM:
Would the sabbatical year would have been ’94-’95?
KG:
Yes.
BM:
Okay, okay.
KG:
Yes. And I can certainly confirm that. Unfortunately I’ve packed a lot of that
information, like pictures from my trip and stuff. I could be off by a year or two. I’m sure
that this will come together when you start looking at other people’s data, so I wouldn’t
be the only source of information on that.
BM:
Right. So part of what you’re saying here is that this sabbatical influence was being able
to be in a place like eastern Australia and then coming back and being confronted with
seeing what changes were about to happen?
KG:
Yes. Plus it was pretty arbitrary what was going to happen. People wanted to get up to
Bear Lake faster – it was hard to trail a boat in the narrow canyon. People in Garden City
wanted to get to the hospital faster. So there was quite a push to upgrade the
transportation corridor. The tractor transports wanted a shorter route to I-80 and using
Logan Canyon accomplishes that. The truckers wanted a safer canyon. These were all
rationales for making a wider, straighter highway. But maybe keeping the trucks out of
the canyon would make it safer! At the beginning, we weren’t aware of the truck lobby
for an upgrade of the canyon to make it safer. However, we won’t digress on that one at
this point.
[Reading question to self] What are some of the major influences, oh yes, that helped you
make the choice.
It was the contrast, it was the beauty and the uniqueness of the Great Barrier Reef and it
makes you frame again what is unique in your area. And there is no question that Logan
Canyon is unique. It is a Scenic Byway; it has not been developed, like many of the
canyons in the intermountain west where you have little enclaves of private holdings (so
you get little stores and gas stations and conglomeration of cottages or whatever). Logan
Canyon is scenic and continues to be scenic.
[Reading question to self] Land use changes in Logan Canyon. How have you
contributed to Land Use Changes in Logan Canyon?
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�Well, basically I haven’t. That is an issue with how you get the Forest Service to look
after land use. And we have tried for 15 years to change it and we still have the same
status quo. Again, I’d rather talk about that when we talk about the forest plans and of
course it was the Wasatch-Cache Forest when I was working on it but now it’s the
Wasatch-Cache-Uinta Forest.
[Reading question to self] So what is your overall impression how land use policies are
determined in Logan Canyon? In the Wasatch-Cache-Uinta National Forest?
[Stop and start recording]
KG:
Okay, are we on here?
BM:
We are on.
KG:
Okay. Barbara has asked me to talk a little bit more about the influence in my personal
life of what prompted me to become impassioned about Logan Canyon and preserving its
natural beauty and integrity and treating it with respect as we would like to see future
generations enjoy it as much as we have.
I mentioned earlier in the tape that it was coming back from Australia and seeing the
beautiful landscapes there, particularly the Great Barrier Reef and how unique it was and
how fragile it was, and getting the concept that really even though I love the Great
Barrier Reef it’s the people that live there who need to protect it and look after it and be
aware of what’s going on. And I was in the Great Barrier Reef in the mid-90s so we
weren’t talking about global warming and all the things that are happening to the reefs
very quickly around the world.
But long before I got involved with Logan Canyon there were a group of people at Utah
State who were very concerned about the impact of a road and the impact on the natural
beauty of it – back in the ‘60s. (And just as a side, as we started to work on the road and
whether it needed to be straightened or bridges needed to be widened, Paul Packer who
worked for the Forest Service for years, when he made a comment about the road once.
He said, “Those original road builders for Logan Canyon in the ‘30s did a marvelous job
of following the natural contours and it is a scenic byway and it should stay that way
because you can’t widen it in the narrow parts without destroying it.”
So to give Barbara a list of the people who I know worked on the early issues in Logan
Canyon were: Tom Lyon (he was in the English Department and he did a lot of nature
writing); Bill Helm (was a Fishery Biologist); Jack Spence (was a Chemistry professor);
Ron Goede and John Neuhold (Ron is a Fisheries Biologist and so is John. John worked
at the university, Ron worked for the state). But when I became involved with Logan
Canyon and the issue of the new road, it was Bruce Pendrey and Steve Flint who had
carried on the task of monitoring developments in Logan Canyon. Before CPLC formed
officially, in other words became incorporated as a non-profit, these two guys who were
in the Range Science Department at USU, were writing to or communicating with UDOT
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�(Utah Department of Transportation) and the Forest Service and keeping an eye on what
was going on and trying to alert the public about the issues of Logan Canyon and
improvement on the road.
And before I say anything more about the issues that CPLC worked on, the lower part of
the canyon (and I believe it’s the lower seven to 10 miles) was improved in the ‘60s. And
it was a Fishery Biologist like Bill Helm who was just dumbfounded what they did to the
river because if you want to have a good trout stream you need pools of slow water and
you don’t want to force the river in to a narrow channel. When you widen the road you
make the river faster and straighter. I remember at one of the public meetings a presenter
showing us a picture of the lower canyon before it was widened. And he made the
comment, “You think Logan Canyon is beautiful now, you should have seen it before
they widened it.” Literally the trees arched right over the whole road. It was literally like
driving into the woods, this picture, from the lower – right after you cross the bridge
where you enter the canyon. Right there at, is it First Dam?
BM:
Boy.
KG:
So, there’s no question that they did some major road revision and I’m not an expert to
know specifically what was done but I’m sure it’s there if you want to interview these
other people.
So the reason that the public – and I say the public – because we were able to fill places
like the Logan Middle School auditorium, we were able to fill it with people when UDOT
scheduled public meetings to tell us what they were going to do with this road; how they
were going to improve it. And you have to remember that it was the consulting
companies like C2HMHill [from their website: 6/30/2011: As a global leader in
consulting, design, design-build, operations, and program management, CH2M HILL has
the human and technical resources, the international footprint, and the depth of knowhow and experience to help clients achieve success in any corner of the world.], who are
huge national consulting company, who made very, very thick books on what they were
going to do. It was really something to try and convince them they that needed to be more
sensitive to the canyon.
[Stop and start recording]
BM:
We’re on again.
KG:
So I should just add that when they first did the improvement in Logan Canyon there was
no NEPA process (which means National Environmental Planning Act) which was
passed in the early ‘70s. And that’s something that I won’t go into now. But now when
you have national lands, public lands, you have to follow that process. So I would like to
start how the citizens in Logan and surrounding areas became more specifically involved
with the second project that UDOT was going to do in Logan Canyon. The bridges
needed to be replaced and the approaches to the bridges needed to be replaced. So there
was a process for that that was a pretty big learning curve for all of us.
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�And I’ll stop at that place and let you turn the tape? Or do you want to -- ?
BM:
That’s good.
[Stop and start recording]
[Tape 1 of 1: B]
BM:
We’re starting Tape 1, Side 2 with Kathy Gilbert. Kathy, go ahead.
KG:
It soon became evident to the people that had been monitoring the proposals for road
improvements that it was actually going to happen. And so there was a small group of
people, again, that decided that they would try to do something, to find out more about
the process. Bruce and Steve no longer had the time; so six of us joined together to take a
look at so-called road improvements.
And we met regularly and we looked at what we had to do. And I personally remember
saying, “Well I will go to the Forest Service and see how they’re going to monitor, how
they’re going to look after the forest when the Department of Transportation decides to
build a highway through it.” And I didn’t even know there were things like a forest plan.
But what I quickly learned was that the Forest Service was just going to stand by and let
UDOT or C2HMHill tell them the kind of road to build. The Forest Service might
monitor a stream here and there, but that was it.
For this road upgrade the NEPA process was in effect. This meant public meetings and
an opportunity to comment on plans. The proponents of roads are very good at drawing
up these plans and it is difficult for individuals to challenge the system. The proponent
usually gets what they want and it was obvious that the Forest Service was not going to
be proactive in protecting the forest or the river. Once the Record of Decision (ROD) was
issued by the State of Utah, we had a number of challenges. We challenged the amount of
road widening needed for the bridges, especially in the lower canyon, how the bridges
would be built and how they would take out the old bridge so impact to the river would
be minimal. We wanted building materials that integrated with the natural landscape.
But to give you an overview, a group of us formed the Citizens for the Protection of
Logan Canyon (CPLC). We incorporated as a non-profit, so we had our bylaws and we
had our mode of operation (with the president, and a secretary and a treasurer). We took
that Record of Decision, and I have to say that Sean Swaner who was a student at USU in
biology lead the charge. He was brilliant and a quick study on many issues. He had great
people skills and did an incredible amount of work talking to the engineers about the
actual design of the road and why we should have a shorter wide approach to the bridge.
CPLC recruited lots of members and got members out to public hearings. Utah
Department of Transportation (UDOT) was willing to listen to the public. They had had a
major fiasco with widening Provo Canyon and they wanted to do better. Over a period of
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�about a year we got many changes that reduced the impact of the road and protected the
canyon and the river. We did need a safer road; we did need the bridges replaced. And I
think it was one of these situations where, no, we didn’t get everything but we got a lot of
accommodations that preserved the canyon. And that was good.
BM:
In terms of feeling positive that UDOT really did make an effort to listen and incorporate
some of these –
KG:
Yes, they did. I mean I’m not saying that they just did it willingly from the beginning.
We had a lot of correspondence and had to hire a lawyer to press our case. It was a huge
effort on our part. We tried to get the Forest Service involved so that they would stand up
for what needed to be done for preservation. We didn’t want a big wide road and I think
if you drive it now you’ll see that there isn’t one. I mean there are some wider lanes up by
Red Banks campground that we didn’t think were needed, but that is not significant
compared to the overall changes.
[KG wrote: BM your question is missing here. This following paragraph is about the
visitor center that Logan Canyon Coalition worked on to reduce its impact.]
Certainly this is a project that took place much later, it’s just recently been finished, is the
new Visitors’ Center at the summit. CPLC only negotiated for the road. We didn’t get
everything, but there were some people in the group who felt like we should get more and
they broke off and formed Logan Canyon Coalition. And the persons that were most
involved with that initially were Gordon Steinhoff and Kevin Kobe, and they would
certainly be people worth interviewing for that because I didn’t keep up with it at that
point. I felt like we’d gotten the best we could and the construction was starting. And that
was it, it was finished; it was a done deal.
Once the road construction started I took a rest from it. There were volunteers involved in
monitoring during the construction but basically CPLC took a rest. Some of us felt that
the road was no longer an issue and that it was land management practices that would
have a bigger long term effect on the canyon. This is the domain of the Forest Service.
So I think I’m going to defer to Barbara here and see if she has any questions; more about
the formation of CPLC, and what we did or didn’t do.
BM:
What year was that when you split?
KG:
I can’t remember the year we split. The year we incorporated was 1995. And that went on
until – as far as the road issue and the bridges and the building of the road – that went on
to 2000. We did not get involved in anything from the summit down to Garden City. We
felt if they wanted a straight-away, they could have it. It was really the river and the
protection of the canyon – the narrow part of the canyon – that we were interested in.
BM:
So the summit, exactly, what would be a great reference point for people who are in that
canyon? Limber Pine trail?
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�KG:
Yes.
BM:
Okay.
KG:
You’re just at the very top and you’re almost looking down on Bear Lake, really, or the
new rest stop.
BM:
You mentioned that in the CPLC you also had students and landscape architecture
involved. Because we’re at the university, would you just mention some of those other
departments besides Landscape Architecture and Natural Resources?
KG:
They weren’t any departments involved. It was people like, for instance, Mike Timmons
in the Landscape Architecture department and he had been involved with some of those
early people with the first road upgrade in the 60’s. He said when he first moved to
Logan that was one of the first things he heard about – is this road that they were going to
build. This road was always going to happen. The second part of this project was always
in the distant future. We knew it was coming and UDOT has its budgets and it replaces
bridges and it widens roads as the budgets come up and they’re available. So I think
people were stunned at what they did in the lower part of the canyon. I wasn’t because I
never saw it before. So that’s just – we were primed! [Laughing]
BM:
Well and also with that UDOT back run you mentioned with Provo Canyon being – did
you say a “failure” or ---
KG:
Well, I don’t know that it was a failure. It was very expensive for them and they did try to
make it into four lanes – and I guess it is four lanes. But it was another very scenic
canyon that was a massive construction project. I can’t comment on it, I just know that
there were slides and they were over-budget and that sort of thing. So I’m sure it was
distressing to all the people involved.
BM:
In those kinds of influences have got to be part of the history of why things happen at
different times –
KG:
Right.
BM:
Such as, you know, UDOT maybe listening a little bit better.
KG:
Right. Right. I know. And again, I did not do that negotiating part. Sean did; he was
incredible.
BM:
Do you think there were other influences in the Cache Valley community during this
mid-90s to early 2000 era that were influential besides just land use management? Are
there other – can you reflect on any other kind of history or movements that are going
on?
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�KG:
Well, Bridgerland Audubon Society was the people that were the umbrella group for
CPLC and the road. They were supportive of us – in other words, I think it’s really
important when you’re doing this grassroots work that you have a group that you can
connect to. Bridgerland is another 5013C – or a non-profit. They had people, they had the
contacts, they had a newsletter that went out once a month. So they were certainly an
umbrella group for people who were interested in becoming more active in how the road
– you know, the impact of the road.
BM:
Were there other issues at the time that they were involved with? I know wetlands, right
now is a very big issue, and protecting Cutler, and that…..
KG:
Right. I can’t speak to that because I was not a member of Audubon. I certainly knew of
it and had friends who were in Audubon but I wasn’t involved with Audubon, so I
couldn’t tell you.
BM:
Okay.
[Stop and start recording]
BM:
What are the aspects of this projects with policy and with involvement – which I phrase
as “participatory democracy” – and is important for all levels of our population to hear is
the challenge of involvement and also the joys of being involved with that. And I wonder
if you could reflect a little on that, on your role?
KG:
Well I like the idea of the joys of it because I certainly met a tremendous diversity of
people and it was really fun to work with them and to see their passion. And so when you
get involved with something like CPLC or protecting Logan Canyon, it is very
reinforcing to work with others who have the same passion. And I think if you asked all
those people to show their favorite family pictures – we all have pictures standing at
Wind Caves on a beautiful fall afternoon, or standing by the river – and the idea that it
could be lost is really quite a tragic thought to people. So that is where the initial
motivation comes from: to want to protect something that’s in your backyard, that’s in
your everyday experience that adds pleasure to your life. And then when you start to
work at it and you see the mammoth institutions that you are up against, such as the
highway department (“we build roads, we fix bridges we do it the way the engineers tell
us to do it”); or the Forest Service (“Traditionally we’ve run cattle on these lands; they’re
degraded, we know they’re degraded; we have experts on plant ecology and streams and
fish but right now, politically we can’t do anything.”). So that can be a huge stumbling
block that you feel you’re up against these institutions or these have agencies that lots of
money and power.
But at the end of the day, for me as I started to work on it – first of all it was an education
process – learning about streams, fish, plants, cattle, whatever; even meeting ranchers
that I never would have had the opportunity to meet – is that I was going to try to
influence activities (whether it’s road building, cattle running, forest management)
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�because at the end of the day if it wasn’t fixed or it was done, it wouldn’t be for lack of
trying.
That’s a very roundabout way of saying at the end of the day I gave it a fair shot. And I
had lots of people to help. Lots of professionals who were also passionate about it –
maybe didn’t have the time, but certainly gave of their professional knowledge. And you
work at these things as long as you can work at them and do it at a level that is satisfying
to you. And I felt like I had to learn quite a bit before I could write letters to the Forest
Service or to UDOT or to whomever I was communicating with. But at the end of the day
you just have to say your part. And that’s where it’s at.
BM:
And you felt like you had a tremendous team working with you at that time?
KG:
Well yes, everybody had great ideas. Yes, there were a lot of people and they’re out
there. They’re out there for everything if you’re willing to seek them out. There are
currently people in the valley, like the Bear River Watershed Council, who have
continued on. I’m not up on what Audubon is doing these days, but I haven’t been living
here so.
[Stop and start recording]
BM:
Kathy, do you have a particular story that you would like to share from your work here in
Cache Valley, in Logan Canyon, a particular one that comes to mind? In terms of
walking the landscape with some of your colleagues on this, a particular place?
KG:
Well we did a lot of work up Spawn Creek and I have that documented in a book, where
we were looking at the impact of cattle on the land and measuring sediment in the stream.
And the Forest Service has had that as sort of their exemplary place. Again, I’m not up to
speed on what’s happening right now. But it was fun to go up with John Carter and my
husband Barrie, and the few people that came to do those treks – to just walk the stream
and see it at different times of year. But I don’t really have any specific story in the
canyon, except to be astounded to some of the ugly places due to what the cattle of done.
And I mean it’s documented in pictures. I mean it’s just trashed, like beaver dams that are
just – well you wouldn’t want to even eat your lunch there.
BM:
And overgrazing?
KG:
Yes, well it’s just abuse of the land. It’s just not good management. And I think it’s very
sad.
BM:
What about books or writings that have influenced you?
KG:
Yes. I mentioned earlier today – Debra Donahue, Revisiting Western Lands [The
Western Range Revisited: Removing Livestock from Public Lands to Conserve Native
Biodiversity (1999)]; Wallace Stegner who writes eloquently about issues in the western
landscape. I frankly can’t remember the names and the titles, but I did read books that
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�were recommended by friends and colleagues. And I certainly will get the names of those
to you.
BM:
And why the Donahue book -- Revisiting Western Lands?
KG:
Well she had such an experience – both from the legal perspective, she’s in the law
school in Wyoming. The head of the State Senate tried to get her fired when she came out
with her book. You’d have to read Andy Kerr’s review on that website. It’s been a while
since I’ve read it; it’s just that she had a great combination of knowledge about the
landscape and then the legal part of it. So it was very brave of her to write that book and
it was very informative for those who are trying to get the federal agencies to do their job.
BM:
And that was published about when?
KG:
I don’t know. I think mid-90s; I can’t tell you. I don’t have the book right now to lay my
hands on it.
BM:
Okay, I can look that up; and then Stegner also?
KG:
Yes, Wallace Stegner.
BM:
Um-hmm.
KG:
He actually came to Utah State in the ‘70s to give seminars to the English Department, if
you can believe it! How did I get involved with him? I don’t know, I just like his
writings. He did a lot of nature writing – I can’t tell you. I read his biography. He’s
eloquent.
BM:
Was he here with the Western Writers Project with Tom Lyon?
KG:
I think so. I don’t know. I wasn’t here – I didn’t come until ’76 to Logan. And my
understanding he was really here the early ‘70s, but he gave workshops regularly. All his
papers are in University of Utah.
BM:
That must have incredible to see him.
KG:
Yes, it would be.
BM:
And hear him.
KG:
Um-hmm, um-hmm.
BM:
Okay. Anything else you’d like to add for today’s tape? We’re going to continue at a later
date, looking at some of the specific letters and some of the other work that you’ve done
with the CPLC. But anything else for today that you’d like to add to culminate our visit?
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�KG:
I don’t think so; I think that’s just about it.
BM:
Well thank you very much for today’s interview.
KG:
You’re welcome!
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LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Katherine Gilbert
Place of Interview: Katherine Gilbert’s home in Logan, UT
Date of Interview: 29 April 2008
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Barbara Middleton
Barbara Middleton
Recording Equipment:
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Radio Shack Cassette Tape Recorder: CTR-122
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Susan Gross
Katherine Gilbert [who added some information] and Barbara
Middleton; Randy Williams (30 June 2011)
Brief Description of Contents: Kathy speaks about the direction the Citizens for the Protection
of Logan Canyon [CPLC] took after the completion of the Logan Highway project; getting
involved in land use management issues. She also discusses the differences between the CPLC
and the Logan Canyon Coalition [LCC]. She ends the interview with some memories of growing
up in Montreal and skiing in the Laurentian Mountains.
Reference:
BM = Barbara Middleton (Interviewer; Interpretive Specialist,
Environment & Society Dept., USU College of Natural Resources)
KG = Katherine Gilbert
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with
brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 1: A]
BM:
We’re here with Kathy Gilbert on Tuesday, April 29, 2008. We’re in her home on Sunset
Drive in Logan. And we are here to continue with our discussion with Logan Canyon and
the oral histories and some of the activities that Kathy was involved with through the
CPLC and some of the other organizations.
Okay Kathy. Kathy’s got a map in front of her and is going to talk a little bit about the
location of some of the areas – a Logan Canyon map.
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�[Speaking directly to Kathy] Why don’t you point out some of the areas that you were
involved with. Bear Hodges, or --?
KG:
Well, first of all I’ll just go over our mission statement for the Citizens for the Protection
of Logan Canyon [CPLC] It was to “protect the natural beauty and overall integrity of the
canyon.” Now that the road was “fait accompli” in the sense that we’d had our input with
the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT), with road and bridge modifications and
it had been built according to the guidelines in the Record of Decision we turned our
attention to other issues. The road building took about 5 years beginning to end (19952000).
And as we educated ourselves about the issues in Logan Canyon it was no longer the road
having a huge impact, but how the lands were managed. And so the Forest Service was
redoing the Forest Plan and there were issues that they had to address. And there were
procedures, policies that they had to follow. And at the same time that they were redoing
the Forest Plan, there was a mandate, I believe, at the federal level that the Forest Service
had to do an Environmental Impact Statement (commonly known as an EIS) for every
cattle allotment. And of course the Forest Service didn’t have the manpower to do this.
And we felt that the first allotment that needed to be looked at (and we needed to look
over the shoulder of the Forest Service) was the North Rich cattle allotment because it is
one of the largest. It is 27,000 acres along the ridge of the Bear River Range and goes
into the sinks of Cache and Rich Counties. And I have a letter here to our membership,
dated April 24, 2000, which does a nice job of summarizing what the allotment was – still
is – what action was being taken at that time by the U.S. Forest Service, and why this
particular allotment was important. And it was important because it had a diversity of
species and parts of it had been very much abused by land uses. So that was the
beginning of our switch from the road to the land management issues.
BM:
So basically what you’re saying is that in order to protect the canyon and the kinds of
values and aesthetics and conservation concerns with wildlife and water -- the group
really formed with the road issue, but with the road issue moving into other areas, it was
now becoming the adjacent land management and all that involved. So this was your first
--.
KG:
Right. Yes, and the big impetus of course the Audubon people and there was quite a
broad base in Cache Valley – was the increase in motorized traffic (both snowmobiling in
the winter and all terrain vehicles in the summer). And they were making many, many
inroads – non-legal roads, paths – that they traveled along (this was the summer traffic).
And then of course with the winter traffic and these high-powered snowmobiles they
were able to go up very steep slopes and that has an impact for the wildlife. In other
words, when the snowmobiles pack down the surface of the high terrain, predators such
as coyotes start to compete with the lynx. The lynx can travel in deep snow and so its
food base is depleted if coyotes get access because of snowmobiles. And then there was
also the issue of the Nordic skiers and their yurt in the high country. The skiers would
tromp in, taking all day to get there, to stay in the yurt and the snowmobilers would have
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�come in and trampled all the nice powder. So they wanted an area set aside for nonmotorized use. And the two people that you need to talk to about that are Bryan Dixon
and Lou Reynolds – who were very active in the new Forest Service Plan in protecting
that area for non-motorized traffic in the winter. And they actually had a lawsuit over the
Forest Service arbitrarily changing the winter travel plan. They won the first time and
then the snowmobilers went back to Rod Bishop, a congressman and had the decision
reversed.
BM:
Now the cross-country ski people, was that Nordic United?
KG:
I think they formed that group. I’m not up on it. By this time I was out of the valley
enough for extended periods of time that I couldn’t keep up with it.
BM:
I’ll check up on that.
KG:
And CPLC was essentially dissolved as far as, what you call NGO – Non-Governmental
Organization.
BM:
Like a non-profit?
KG:
Non-profit, yes.
BM:
So dissolved as of 2002?
KG:
Actually just in ’06. We kept it registered with the state for several years, because it’s
very expensive to start it up with all the paperwork, but. CPLC began under the auspices
of Audubon which gave them, you know, non-profit status and access to the
environmental community. They were very supportive and very good.
BM:
Is Audubon still involved with some of those issues?
KG:
I wouldn’t say so.
BM:
No? So between the time that you started under the auspices of Audubon and the
organization was dissolved – in that time, the road issues, and then the adjacent land
issues involving monitoring with group citizens – there were other people that were
becoming involved and going out and helping the Forest Service actually keep track of
some of those areas?
KG:
Well I’m going to be pretty definite here. We never wanted to “help” the Forest Service.
We wanted the Forest Service to do their job. And John Carter did a lot of monitoring on
his own because he realized that when he was out hiking in the forest – and he did a lot of
it – he saw how degraded it was. And he took pictures, and he wrote them and he
requested interventions to stop these destructive practices -- there’s a whole literature, a
whole background that he can tell you about – he formed his own organization and then
he joined with Western Watersheds eventually (which he’s still with). This is a huge
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�issue in the West. It’s not unique to Logan Canyon, nor to the Forest Service; BLM lands
have also got the same issues.
BM:
Um-hmm.
KG:
So no one man could do it. I think what happened with our group is as we worked more
with the Forest Service and we got more involved and educated ourselves, we saw these
land use issues that really none of us were aware of.
BM:
Um-hmm.
KG:
BM:
So I know there were groups that started up in Cache Valley that were interested in
monitoring these “illegal roads” and – it’s Dan Miller and his group (and I gave you that
contact) – and he would tell you what they’ve done. And they may have had volunteers
that went out and saw who was running around the forest on illegal roads – but it’s very,
very difficult to manage. And the Forest Service had no staff to manage it.
Right.
KG:
So.
BM:
Well and there are groups – there is a group that I am familiar with up in the Smithfield
area – and it may be Dan Miller’s group – that is actually going out and they have been
regularly photographing through photo points to monitor the changes.
KG:
Yes. We have monitored the forest to death. It has massive destruction – the Forest
Service needs to do something about it. But the motorized recreation people are such a
force that I don’t think – it’s the same as the issue in Yellowstone about snowmobilers
going into the park. We have overwhelming support that the public doesn’t want
motorized traffic in the park and they can always find a way to let in a certain number.
It’s a huge lobby. So I don’t know what those groups are doing but we don’t need any
more monitoring – we need action.
BM:
And the changes in the canyon, with some of the land sales, the land swaps – when land
comes up for private availability, do you see that as an increase in more of the access --?
KG:
Well, I thought when I was involved with the land swap up there they were very
interested in doing it right and protecting the riparian area and Dick Toth and his
landscape architecture group drew up a wonderful plan for that area. And there are ways
to mitigate – you have development, but you concentrate it and you listen to the experts
that can tell you how to preserve the viewscape and how to preserve water quality, and
you know? It can be done. It seems that monetary interests trump everything.
BM:
And the choices get made in that direction?
KG:
Well, you know, it’s political. It becomes political.
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�BM:
Um-hmm.
[Stop and start recording]
BM:
Alright, the tape is back on and we are talking a little bit about what the transition of
some of these groups, how CPLC had a spin-off with LCC [Logan Canyon Coalition] or
a change with LCC and I’d like you to explain that a little bit.
KG:
BM:
Well, I am only going from my cut-outs from the newspaper [laughing]. And on the
second page in the Bridgerland Section (which all local people will be familiar with)
there’s a byline – April 15, 1999 – where it’s a story about Logan Canyon Coalition, or
LCC, wanted to pursue further the designation of Logan River as “wild and scenic.” And
I think the thinking was that by getting it designated “wild and scenic” it would then
drive guidelines for any further roadwork. And this (oh, I have to look at this and read it
because I don’t remember it). Anyway, my memory of what LCC did that I thought was
really important, is they cut back on the size and just the look of the Visitors’ Center at
the top (the Summit of Logan Canyon.) They downsized the building and made it more
environmentally friendly.
Okay, and when you say “the top” we’re talking about the top of Logan –
KG:
The summit –
BM:
The summit of Logan Canyon. [Overlooking Bear Lake.]
KG:
The summit of Logan Canyon where they’ve built a little visitors’ center and a
washroom, and I think that was really important to have that – I don’t know that we
needed a visitors’ center, per se, but it certainly is a beautiful view from up there. And
they got things like solar panels so you wouldn’t have power lines. And that was an
interest that certainly Gordon Steinhoff pursued. I am very vague on what other roadwork
LCC wanted to have a say in. By this time the people that remained in CPLC were quite
involved with the new Forest Plan. Informing our members and commenting on the
Forest Plan was a full time job.
BM:
Um-hmm.
KG:
I have a few letters here that speak to that.
BM:
But here again is that continuation with LCC really wanting to focus on what they could
look at with the forest issues and their interest staying a little bit closer to the road, and
CPLC – as you mentioned – is starting look at the adjacent land –
KG:
Well I don’t remember LCC having anything to do with land management issues. Now I
could easily stand corrected on that.
BM:
Okay.
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�KG:
I’m sure they came to our meetings and supported us, but I don’t remember them
formally as an organization doing that.
BM:
Okay.
KG:
But then I wasn’t really very close to it at that point.
BM:
Okay.
KG:
I think the road had been done. Essentially UDOT followed the Record of Decision, and
there were lots of hearings about that in the early ‘90s. And then we monitored it to make
sure that they did it (and Sean Swanner was absolutely critical to that). And I really hope
that you’ll be able to follow up with him because he was just brilliant at it. He had a
wonderful disposition; he didn’t get angry. Everybody liked him. He was your ultimate
negotiator and kept his eye on the ball and didn’t get sidetracked by personalities or
emotional issues. And I just thought he was wonderful.
BM:
And that’s a hard one because for the people I’ve spoken to with Logan Canyon it is an
emotional issue. It’s a –
KG:
Well, it was such a blatant violation of it by this transportation corridor. There’s just no
question. And so he was able to work very consistently– just took one step at a time. He
could read the technical drawings, that’s what amazed me; and could talk to the engineers
and they were receptive to him, so it was great.
BM:
Okay.
[Stop and start recording]
BM:
Okay, we’re back on with the tape.
KG:
Alright, so Barbara has asked me if I would like to summarize something for CPLC. I
guess – well I don’t guess – this is on a personal note: I think it’s very reinforcing to
work on a local level with issues that are very important to you personally; in other
words, preserving the value of Logan Canyon from the natural perspective. And I think
you can learn so much, you can have great interactions with your neighbors, your friends,
people that you meet in the community. And you never know that’s going to happen until
you do it and you just have to get out front and do it! And find people who have the same
interests as you – and there are always those people out there. And I think in the end,
although it was a lot of time and effort for me and I got preoccupied and worried about
whether we were doing it right – I took away a lot of information and I learned a lot.
That’s about it.
BM:
Thank you Kathy.
[Stop and start recording]
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�BM:
Alright, we’re back on.
KG:
Okay. This part of the tape is really not related directly to CPLC. The people that I have
met in the environmental movement in the west have typically been from the east. They
are impressed with the amount of open public land. You can walk more than a mile and
not run into a fence! When people see how public lands have been abused by vested
interests, they want to change policy so these lands can be preserved; these lands are
beautiful just as they are. They don’t need to be “used.”
I think growing up in the 50’s gave us a sense of place. There was a line between the city
and the country. Even though I grew up in a big city I could go to the country just 40
miles away; skiing in the winter, the lake in the summer. We drove on two lane highways
to get there. The little village in the pictures is St. Sauveur, 20 years apart, painted by the
same artist. We walked around that village, often in our ski boots – not easy! We walked
to the ski hills and then walked home at night buying our bread at the bakery and our
supper at the local grocery store. We rented a room in a local home and practiced our
high school French with the madam of the house. On those lovely sparkling winter nights
we went to the pub and drank beer. It’s changed now. They built malls on the edge of
town and the little narrow streets are crowded with tourists in the summer and winter.
The paintings are painted by Betty Galbraith-Cornell who painted the pictures about 20
years apart. The older one with the horse-drawn sled was a very common scene for me as
a kid. That would be a way that people got around; lots and lots of snow. And in the later
one is just the streets are plowed and it still had that ambience, but it’s even of course
changed dramatically today where they’ve put shopping malls on the outskirts. But this
was just a lovely, old French-Canadian town with little colored houses. And a lot of
English people would have had cabins there, ski cabins, where we would walk. So that’s
about it. But it was a wonderful, magical place because it was little.
BM:
A lot of time spent outdoors.
KG:
Yes, we spent, yes we did. We spent all day outdoors. And of course I think that’s the
secret to winter, is that you get outside for the day! [Laughing] And that you’re dressed
and not cold!
BM:
KG:
Well, thank you.
I don’t know if I said the same as last time, but I got the beer in there!
BM:
Did you say Betty Galbraith-Cornell?
KG:
Yes. I think they were. Yes. I’m trying to think – yes they were. It was actually a friend
of my mother’s who knew this artist as a personal friend.
BM:
Thank you Kathy.
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�
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Hosted by: Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library
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Title
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Katherine Gilbert interviews, 8 April 2008 & 29 April 2008, and transcriptions
Description
An account of the resource
In her first interview Katherine Gilbert briefly talks about her childhood in Canada and fond memories of outdoor experiences in her youth. She discusses her college education and subsequent jobs and training, and then speaks about influences as an adult which inspired her to be proactive toward protecting the natural beauties surrounding her residence. She discusses the formation of the Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon [CPLC] and her role within the organization. She talks about the CPLC’s part in the planning of improvements and expansion of the highway and bridges in Logan Canyon. In the second interview Katherine Gilbert speaks about the direction the Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon [CPLC] took after the completion of the Logan Highway project getting involved in land use management issues. She also discusses the differences between the CPLC and the Logan Canyon Coalition [LCC]. She ends the interview with some memories of growing up in Montreal and skiing in the Laurentian Mountains.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gilbert, Katherine, 1942-
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Middleton, Barbara
Subject
The topic of the resource
Citizens for the Protection of Logan Canyon
Land use--Utah--Logan Canyon
Beaver Mountain (Utah)
Canyons--Utah--Cache County--Recreational use
Queen's University (Kingston, Ont.)--Alumni and alumnae
Montreal (Quebec)
Laurentian Mountains (Quebec)
Wind Caves (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Right Hand Fork (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Skis and skiing--Utah--Logan Canyon
Roads--Widening--Utah--Logan Canyon--Citizen participation
Roads--Environmental aspects--Utah--Logan Canyon
Scenic byways--Utah--Logan Canyon
United States. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969
United States. Forest Service
Utah. Dept. of Transportation
CH2M Hill, inc.
Logan Canyon Coalition
Bridgerland Audubon Society
Swanner, Sean
Grazing--Cache National Forest (Utah and Idaho)
Range Management--Utah--Logan Canyon
Allotment of land--Utah--Logan Canyon
Natural resources--Utah--Logan Canyon--Management
Rangelands--Utah--Cache County
Rangelands--Multiple use--Utah--Logan Canyon
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
Oral histories
Interviews
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Montreal (Quebec)
Laurentian Mountains (Quebec)
Quebec
Canada
Wind Caves (Utah)
Right Hand Fork (Utah)
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1950-1959
1960-1969
1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999
20th century
2000-2009
21st century
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 2 Fd. 8 & 9
Is Referenced By
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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http://highway89.org/files/original/0b9702331cb03a29e4287af0cbb66f50.mp3
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Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Garth Barker
Place of Interview: Downtown Logan, Utah
Date of Interview: 4 February 2009
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Brad Cole and Clint Pumphrey
Brad Cole
Recording Equipment:
Marantz Professional: PMD660
Transcription Equipment used: PowerPlayer Transcription Software, Executive
Communication Systems
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Susan Gross
Brad Cole; Randy Williams (8 March 2011)
Brief Description of Contents: Garth Barker discusses his involvement with issues regarding
multiple-use access for the Logan Canyon. He talks about meeting with politicians about
concerns. He also speaks about his experience as a member of Search and Rescue.
Reference:
BC = Brad Cole (Interviewer; Associate Dean, USU Libraries)
CH = Clint Pumphrey (Interviewer; USU history graduate student)
GB = Garth Barker
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with
brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 1: A]
BC:
Hi, this is Brad Cole from Utah State University Merrill-Cazier Library, Special
Collections and Archives. It’s February 4th today; we’re visiting with Garth Barker in
downtown Logan and we’re talking about Logan Canyon Land-Use Management Project.
And also sitting in with us is Clint Pumphrey [USU Special Collections graduate student
worker and project fieldworker].
Garth, I always like to start an oral history at the very beginning and ask when and where
you born?
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�GB:
I was born in Logan, 1949.
BC:
Okay. So you grew up in Logan?
GB:
Been here all my life.
BC:
And if you don’t mind, maybe tell us who your parents were.
GB:
They’re still alive: Levere and Lunella Barker, and they’re still here.
BC:
And there were from Logan also?
GB:
Yes, not born here, but they moved here from other parts of Utah.
BC:
The project [Land Use Management] is working on Logan Canyon; and so maybe you
could tell us a little about your experiences with Logan Canyon and land use issues that
are -- .
GB:
Well, I’ll start in the beginning. Growing up here, before the valley grew so much, kids
lived, you know around the foothills. That’s where you spent your time. Whether you
were riding a horse or hiking or later on skiing; when motorized come along it was
motorcycles and snowmobiles. Back in the [19]‘60s and the late ‘50s you didn’t have a
mall; nobody went “downtown.” You bummed around the hills and because you are a
product of your environment, that’s kind of where all your interest went. We hunted; at
times you would start with the first season and go all the way through and fill the holes in
with fishing. And of course, long time before the valley grew so quick; seems like only
the last 15 years has all the holes filled in.
Later on, around 1985-84, when the Forest Plan was being re-done at that time, they started
closing things down. Way back during MJ Roberts time—he was the District Ranger at the
time—and this come as a surprise. How could they do that? Why are they closing this down and
closing that down. And at that time most of us had been exploring on with motorcycles, trail
bikes, horses. Snowmobiles weren’t a big thing, but they come along with winter travel plans.
And that started to affect the snowmobiling. At the time—up to about 1988-89—I was a skier.
And I remember crossing the first other cross-country ski tracks one day, wondering who in the
world was up here in my mountains, on skis like I was. Because before that I’d seen trappers
(guys that were trapping using snow shoes) but I was the only one that I knew of on cross-country
skis. And it was just purely for recreation; or sometimes you would go out on skis to hunt coyotes
or something. But it was a shocker. So I tracked the guy down and it ended up being a guy and
his girlfriend. And I had had my wife with me at the time. We set up on a sunny hillside and
talked. But that was probably 19—that would have been about 1980—when I bumped on to the
first other cross-country skier. But, pretty interesting.
Then I got into snowmobiling about 1986; mostly to supplement my skiing opportunities in the
winter. And you have to understand that during the summer it was still motorcycles and horses
and four-wheel drive trucks. But things were getting shut down. And being involved with a lot of
local people because the business here, the gas station and everything, attracted a good variety of
people. You become like a barber shop; you become aware of the issues. And they were
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�concerned and so I got involved. They made me the president of the Snowmobile Association.
And that really forced me into it. And of course it’s gone on since then.
BC:
How long has there been a Snowmobile Association? Is it the new association, was that -- ?
GB:
It had been around a long time before I got involved. I think it was formed in 1975 by some of the
locals out of Providence, Utah. And so it had been around a long time. And of course the
machines grew and advanced and become a little more reliable about the time I was getting into
it. It was a viable form of winter transportation. It should be excused!
BC:
[Laughing]
GB:
But there was also – for me it was a tool to get me into the backcountry so I could use my skis.
BC:
Um-hmm.
GB:
But as you get older and your knees start to go that machine becomes a better tool than the skis.
CP:
So when do you remember the first real challenges to snowmobiles and Logan Canyon and places
around here?
GB:
When I heard that they were closing down the base range in Green Canyon because it was going
to be included in the 1984 Utah Wilderness Act. And prior to that time the two canyons:
Providence Canyon and Green Canyon were access for the snowmobiles into the backcountry.
They removed the Green Canyon at that time, that access, and left the Providence access. Mainly
because Providence was quite developed with the Johnson Quarry up there, it didn’t fit the
description of Wilderness. So it was an area that we lost. And since then there’s been attempts at
in-roads adding to that area and I’ve been fully involved in that. As early as 1993-94 we formed a
group of people from all aspects. Headed up by the Chamber of Commerce we produced a
Citizens’ Proposal. And we tried over a course of three years to iron out the problems between the
two winter user groups; and produced a document that still has some viability today and has been
used numerous times during arbitration and mediation. But way back in ’93-94 we were really
involved in it.
BC:
Back up a little bit about the 1984 Wilderness Act, were you involved in the meetings and stuff
leading up to that?
GB:
CP:
No, no prior to that. And it was a mistake on a lot of us’ behalf is we wasn’t involved. Yeah,
Wilderness is a good thing. I mean as early as the Wilderness Act of 1964, it’s a good idea –
preserve it. But by 1984, a lot of us out west didn’t pay any attention to it until it hit home. And
of course back then the parameter set for wilderness were a lot better; they’ve been degraded and
watered down since then. What’s considered wilderness now, or a Wilderness Study Area
certainly doesn’t have the same quality that they did back then. But when they started hitting
home and shutting you down, then you start getting involved. And still even as late as probably
1990, we didn’t understand the process. And I would daresay the majority of backcountry users
still don’t. We tried to educate them on it; they don’t want to get involved. And I would say that
is the majority of people: “don’t take away my snowmobiling,” or “don’t take away my skiing,”
is as far as they want to get involved.
Why do you think that is?
GB:
I think, well if I could answer that question I’d be [inaudible].
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�[Laughing]
GB:
Too busy; too busy with making a living and playing. And until some things are taken from them,
removed from their opportunity, they don’t care. You talk to the guys up here – they don’t care
what’s happening in Southern Utah unless they’re a group that goes down to Moab or something.
They’re not going to make comment on it. They might once a year go hunt sage grouse, but when
a comment period comes around, put out by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, they’re not going to take
time to make a comment on it. And then I think the other thing that has made it far easier is the
advances in computer technology and of course the web. Now information can be disseminated to
almost everybody, instantaneously. So today, as opposed to ten years ago, there’s far more people
involved. I think both sides now are holding their own. They’ll squabble over little pieces like we
have here. But I think both sides are more understanding now because of that tool.
CP:
So how have your efforts to combat the restrictions on outdoor recreation and things, how have
those changed over the last – well since you’ve been working on them?
GB:
How have they changed? They changed . . . our approaches changed because we learned that
grassroots movement didn’t work. We involved at one meeting (which was a workshop), during
the early stages of the forest planning, we had almost 500 people to a public meeting. That had
never been done before! To a Forest Service meeting over a Forest Plan. And it was kind of a
shocker, but it didn’t amount to anything. It made no difference to the changes they were making;
which was really kind of a low blow. You would think: okay, you’ve got 500 people here as
opposed to the opposition (if you will) 50 people. And it made no difference. And I was a bit
taken back by it and questioned which avenue to take at that point. And so I started to meet with
politicians and I found out that the politicians needed the people. They didn’t particularly care
about the issues either, but they voted. And if you go to a politician and say, “I have 750
registered voters that think like I do. I need your help.” They’ll say, “Okay, what can I do?” They
need the people, you need the politicians and the people to get anything done. And that was a far
better way to get things done.
BC:
Which politicians? Local politicians, or congress?
GB:
Actually, not even so much on local because you are dealing with a federal agency with the
Forest Service, you had to deal with our federal senators and congressman. And worked real close
with Jim Hansen while he was in office, and actually become a board member of a political pack
that involved 11 other chairs from different aspect of outdoor recreation: from backcountry pilots
to bighorn sheep hunters. And we would meet monthly in the back room of a Salt Lake restaurant
that looked like a Mafia setting. Big dark oak table --
[Laughing]
And being a political PAC of course we could have the politicians there. And they would be
looking for our support and we would be looking for their support. And I met a lot of the current
senators and congressmen at that point. That group of people numbered – the people they
represented – probably a million and a half people. Not just in the state of Utah. So if a politician
come in and said, “I need your support.” And you listen to him and his ideas, it was a big thing
for him. Matheson wouldn’t be one of our congressmen without the support of that organization.
But he understood that in his district there were an awful lot of people that hunted. And he
sought out the support of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, which was one of the chairs. And we
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�discussed it and talked with his opponent (who was a Republican) and we decided that this
Democrat was a better choice.
BC:
Hmm.
GB:
He had a far better view of what the people needed that his opponent. And we supported him. It
didn’t really matter if he was a Republican or Democrat, but which one addressed the views of
the people the best.
CP:
So what were the opinions of Matheson that you liked so much, specifically?
GB:
He was willing to listen to his people. He cared more about the guy existing on a ranch, than what
was happening in the city; he had some pretty good homegrown values. And as a congressman, I
think he’s a pretty good congressman.
BC:
GB:
Did the pack have a name?
Macc. M-A-C-C: Multiple Access Conservation Coalition.
CP:
So you talk about how you worked with a lot of federal politicians in your efforts. What was the
makeup of your opponents? Were they federal environmental groups, or local type people, or?
GB:
Mostly, dealing with our issues here I was the only chair that was concerned with more than one
aspect. I was concerned with motorized access as opposed to Backcountry Pilots or the
Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife or something like that. Because there were issues that we
bumped heads on within the coalition, within the pack. The hunting groups didn’t particularly
advocate ATVs, and yet my concern for my area was access. But we worked it out within the
group. Of course on the issue here on the Logan Ranger District it was a forest issue. And with
the right political help you can force things, and we did.
BC:
How has your experience with the Logan Ranger District, how well has the management been
and what would you think of the condition of it today versus 25 years ago?
GB:
Like any federal or state agency, they’re worth – not the job that they’re assigned to do – but their
worth and ability to get the job done is directly determined by the people in there. If a particular
District Ranger or department head has a personal agenda that’s going to affect how that entire
section works. Over the past 20 years we’ve had good District Rangers, we’ve had a lot of interim
District Rangers here. And for the most part they were good people, but they had their own
personal agendas. Or maybe the worst case was they came into it unbiased but they allowed
themselves to be affected by – and I hate to say it -- but they allowed themselves to be affected by
university people. The University is a big entity here. The Outdoor Rec Department has a direct
relationship with the Forest Service. District Rangers and Recreation Line Officers have let
themselves be – their biased was removed or enhanced, if you will. If they didn’t have any bias,
they certainly did after awhile because of the university’s influence. And you had to battle that.
And you had to battle it with the use of politicians. I’m not sure I answered your question. We
had to fight against the ideals that the university popped out. Which we did. It was effective.
I think we have a good mix right now. On the last round everybody lost something, but you have
to understand the views of the local people that access it using machinery. One time they could go
anywhere they wanted.
BC:
Right.
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�GB:
Then along came the Wilderness. Their area was cut by 274,000 acres. And then along come a
Forest Plan; and other areas were closed down. Whether it was a wildlife closure – which nobody
minded – or whether it was another user group that wanted another area closed. The same thing
still applies. A non-motorized user can still go anywhere they want, but the motorized people
were always the ones losing ground. And that’s tough for them to swallow.
BC:
How often do they do the Forest Plans? Is that a –
GB:
Congressional mandated every 10-15 years. There’s generally – takes five or six years to get a
Forest Plan done. We’ll be looking at the same issues again here in another five or six years.
BC:
I imagine the population growth puts more pressure on them too.
GB:
Yeah, it does. We’re still behind up here on this ranger district. There are still programs that
should be implemented that aren’t. And a lot of it is dictated by budgets and money. There should
be a Park and Ski program. There should be non-motorized trailheads established, where you can
buy a tag and go park there and you won’t have any opposition from other users that don’t buy a
tag (other non-motorized users). I mean Idaho, Oregon, Colorado – they all have Park and Ski or
Park and Access or whatever they call it – not in Utah.
BC:
Hmm. That would probably help –
GB:
Oh yeah.
BC:
-- (inaudible)
GB:
There you’ve got your own trailhead and nobody’s going to bother you. And somebody pulling a
trailer that wants to park and camp for a couple of days during the winter and fish, or whatever,
can’t park there without a sticker. You’ve got your exclusive -- . I’ve sent Idaho’s, Colorado’s,
Oregon’s bills, amendments, rules, off to our state people time and again: “can’t we implement
this?”
BC:
Does it have to be implemented at the state level?
GB:
Yeah.
BC:
What other kinds of programs do you think that we haven’t -- ?
GB:
That would probably be the most important as far as winter goes. Up here they pushed through
the Shoshone Trail System, but it’s not taken off here (this is for summer OHV use). It’s not
taken off here like it has in other parts of the state. In other parts of the state: the Piute, the
(inaudible) and some of the other trail systems, have done so much to improve the economics of
the regions they’re in – we don’t need it. Our little towns aren’t dependent on tourism.
BC:
Right.
GB:
We’re a university valley. And we have a lot of good light industry – who cares about a trail
system?
BC:
Now are those trails you mentioned, are they a part of that Great Western Trail System?
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�GB:
Yes. Well, that’s a little different. They’re not under the same organization. The Western Trail
covers a lot of states. Each state has a section, but it’s its own organization. The Piute – the other
trails are Utah trails and in cooperation with the Forest Service, BLM. A little different. The
Great Western Trail is its own entity.
CP:
So when you promote motorized transportation to the federal government, to the Forest Service
when you brought it – what is your and your organization’s stance about the benefits of motorized
transportation to having more access to the forest property?
GB:
Well let’s not use the word transportation, let’s use the word access.
CP:
Okay.
GB:
Ever since the west was settled, man has used whatever the best means was to access it; whether
it was a horseback or a boat or foot, or whatever – Model A’s and trucks and vehicles come along
and give access to the backcountry. Why? Well, not everybody is young and healthy. My 82 year
old father is not going to go up there and hike into the backcountry. I know some 85 year old
people that do, but he’s not going to. Or how does a person take all their kids back? And you’re
limited with how far you can go. Now you can drive up to Tony Grove and hike up and you
know, take the kids and hike up for a day. Probably not going to venture very far into the
wilderness. And because there’s more and more people all the time, and everybody wants to get
back in further – the way to do it is motorized. Plus, everybody should have an opportunity –
whether they’re non-motorized or motorized. There is your premise right there is something for
everybody, responsibly. I don’t know if that answers it.
CP:
Yes, that definitely is good. So, you know on the flipside of that, do you see in validity in your
opponents’ arguments that it should be limited?
GB:
Absolutely. Yeah, because I was a skier first before I become a snowmobiler and I don’t want to
get into philosophical reasons, but a non-motorized user has a different value base for the area
they are going to. And it may be the trip in is far more important than the destination. And they
may develop a – whether you want to use the term – sense of place, more so than the
snowmobiler. Yeah, he enjoys the ride probably as much as a skier enjoys a ski run, but is the
reward at the end bigger or better? Probably not. But he probably enjoys it for a different reason.
It’s not quite a religious thing – you can go under your own power and huck up a canyon and get
to the top and jump and down like Rocky and say, “I made it!” You know, he might do the same
thing on a hill with a machine, but – a little different. A little different.
BC:
I’m kind of curious because I don’t really know much about snow machines, but you mentioned
that when you first got involved in the early ‘80s they were a little less dependable?
GB:
I used to like to leave the summit – where the Limber Pine Trail is right now – put my skis on and
I would ski along the ridgeline and hunt snowshoe rabbits. And I’d to watch them stinking,
smoking machines down there try to get where I was at. I always thought that it was interesting –
why would you mess with this thing, it looks like you’re stuck half the time. You know, I
couldn’t understand why they was doing what they was doing. But one day a couple of us decided
– there were five of us – we was going to ski from the Sinks area to Hardware; that’s 35 miles.
That’s a pretty good huck for people on their legs. It took us all day, into dark to do that on skis.
And I can do it in 30 minutes on a snowmobile.
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�BC:
Right. The machines have changed greatly from then, as far as where they can go?
GB:
Oh! Every year they change. I don’t know where they can’t go now. The limitation being whether
it’s motorized or non-motorized. That’s the way they are. Technology has really improved them.
BC:
That probably then has created more clash, potentially, or not?
GB:
Probably not created more clash because skiers never got back there either. Mountaineering,
backcountry skiing – as opposed to cross country or light touring – is fairly new. And it’s new to
technology too: new types of materials, how the skis are made; the bindings, the boots.
Backcountry skiers are relatively new too. And the funny thing about it all is that you’ve got
machines that will get back in there in a hurry (as opposed to getting stuck on their way in like
they used to); you’ve got guys who can use their new skis and get back in there. Now you’ve got
a whole new segment, which we call them “snowmo-boarders” – they’re the guys with
backcountry skis or snowboards that are using a snowmobile to get back in to make tracks where
you can’t take a machine (or take you all day or two days to get on your skis). They are using the
best of both worlds for their recreation. And so both the “purist” groups, if you will, are looking
at them going, “Wait, wait a minute. We’ve got a new form of competition.” Just smarter.
BC:
Yeah. Poor man’s helicopter skiing.
GB:
You got it.
CP:
What areas in Logan Canyon right now are open for snowmobile access? Showing my ignorance
here.
GB:
Well, I don’t remember the numbers without digging into my books. Of course the Wilderness
area is closed. And you have closure up to Blind Hollow; you’ve got the Bunchgrass complex and
the Steam Mill complex and Hell’s Kitchen complex that are closed to motorized – which
encompasses over half of it. You have quite a bit that’s open, but it’s certainly not the same
quality. The Tony Grove area and on into Idaho is as good of snowmobiling that you’ll find
anywhere, maybe better than most nationwide. Same for skiing. You don’t find that type of
backcountry access and availability anywhere else close by. So we’re kind of unique that we have
one area up there that is el primo for both user groups.
BC:
So is the current plan overall working do you think?
GB:
It’s working. Yeah. Hopefully there’s no violation. I haven’t heard of any this year. And I think
people are pretty much satisfied with what we’ve got, other than the extreme ends.
BC:
Right. Which is always the case.
GB:
It’s always the case, yeah.
CP:
So how do you feel the plan here compares to plans in other parts of this area?
GB:
Every other forest that had to go through revision watched this district and this region real close.
They watched the fights; the lawsuits. And I think they took a lesson from them. And so most of
them are formed the same way: a little bit for everybody. We set a poor example, but a good
example. Our fights were long – I mean we went three years over what most Forest Plans take
because of litigation and mediation and ultimately arbitration and more lawsuits.
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�BC:
Have the groups learned from that? Do they work together better now?
GB:
It’s an uneasy truce.
BC:
Yeah.
GB:
We’re kind of like the Hamas and Israel.
[Laughing]
GB:
Nobody wants to throw the first rock, and they’re going to get a little bit complacent about it. And
maybe come the next time we need a Forest Plan there might be minor adjustments, but I think
it’ll work. I hope so. It was a long fight.
CP:
Why do you think it was particularly contentious here?
GB:
We had a real good gene pool of advocates from the university, as opposed to a real good gene
pool of advocates from the redneck community. In this valley the competitiveness among
snowmobilers is extremely high. We’ve got more world champion hill climbers in this valley than
anywhere else in the west or Canada. And same goes for the other race circuits in snowmobiling.
Providence has probably produced more snowmobile competitors in all aspects than any other
single town in the whole country. So a lot of fierce competitive people pitted against a university
gene pool, or recreation pool. Good mix for a fight.
[Laughing]
CP:
So has the fight ever gotten particularly nasty or do they keep it pretty civil?
GB:
You know, ironically nobody ever threw a punch until a skier lost it. It was a skier who threw the
first punch a few years ago, where he dove on the back of a snowmobiler and pulled him off his
sled and wanted to beat him up.
CP:
Just out on the trail?
GB:
Actually it was right on the road. The guy had drove his vehicle up there, parked it, let his dogs
out. He was going to put his skis on and some snowmobilers using the same access into Tony
Grove went by him. He didn’t like it. He thought the same ones were coming back and so he
jumped on the first snowmobiler that come back and was going to beat him up. And of course the
Forest Service happened to be coming along right then, they had to break it up. But it was just an
emotional thing. Nobody got hurt. I had a rock thrown through my window after one public
meeting; and a few death threats, but I didn’t take them serious. One of them, I wished I would
have recorded it. He says, “You’re ruining Mother Nature. We’re going to get you; we’re
watching you.” And I said, “You know, we ought to talk about this – get together some time and
talk about it.” “Well, that won’t do any good, but we’re going to get you.” I said, “Hey, what’s
your name so I can call you back and talk to you about it; I’m kinda busy right now?” “It’s uh –
no wait! I can’t tell you that!”
[Laughing]
You know, how can you take something like that serious? You just can’t.
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�CP:
So before we started the interview, we talked a little bit about your responsibilities with the
Search and Rescue and things. Why don’t you just talk about that. What your role is and all that.
GB:
Oh, I’ve been in there 16 years. Maybe 15 years too long. I do search and rescue because I’m an
adrenaline junkie. It’s not because I love humanity so much.
[Laughing]
We are highly trained professionals, unpaid. It costs us a lot of money, a lot of time. But there are
few things more rewarding than saving somebody. I have friends that are big-game hunters; go all
over the country hunting big game. I would rather go up and find a kid than hunt big game – and I
enjoy hunting. But if I had to take a choice between going after some trophy and going after a lost
skier, I would take the skier. I don’t know why – it’s really not good snowmobiling when you’re
out searching in the winter. Because you are usually out at night and you’re going into places
where people shouldn’t have gone anyway, but it’s enjoyable.
CP:
And so what area do you cover for that?
GB:
I do high angle water rescue – I’m not a diver. Of course winter, whether it’s on skis or
snowmobile. Well, every aspect of it.
CP:
You do summer – like with ATVs and things too?
GB:
Year-round. Yeah.
CP:
And is it just for this area?
GB:
Just Cache County.
CP:
Cache County?
GB:
Yeah. I’m not an advocate of ATVs. I had ATVs -- I prefer my horse. If I have to take my Jeep
into an area on a rescue, that’s what I do in the summer. If a horse is a more viable choice for a
search, I’ll use a horse. If I have to get on an ATV or motorcycle I could do it; I’ve rode both of
them for years. I’m just not a big advocate of them. But because I’m older than the young ones
coming in now, I let them do a little more of the grunt work. I have to sit back a little bit. But
because I’ve been in it so long, I act as an advisor and a safety officer. If avalanche conditions are
such, I’m going to make a call or make my recommendations to the commander and the sergeant.
But because of my knowledge of the backcountry up here I usually end up as a spotter in a
helicopter or as a consultant when we’re going over the maps. There’s few places I haven’t been
up here.
BC:
How is the organization structured?
GB:
We have two teams, two team leaders and a commander. We are under the direct supervision and
part of the Sheriff’s office. We have a sergeant who is our liaison as well as our commander. He
works very closely with the unit commander, hand-in-hand. On every situation they’re at base
camp making calls. I’ve been a commander, I’ve been a captain, I’ve been the state commander (I
just got out of that job, thank heavens) – state Search and Rescue commander.
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�But we break down into teams – whether it’s a snowmobile team or a high-angle teams, or water
rescue – we have some guys that are better at running the boats than other guys – they’ll be team
leaders. We have a dive team; we have guys that go into caves – this country is full of caves – and
so we’ll have guys that are specialized for that. But we only have 35 members. So we all crosstrain and it makes a tighter-knit group. If I’m not a lead on, say a high-angle team, I’m ground
support. And I don’t dive, but I’m ground support for the dive people. So it works good.
CP:
I just kind of wanted to go back. I felt like there was one thing that we didn’t cover very well
about your background a little bit. What is your training, your profession? What did you start
doing when you started in the work world?
GB:
When I wasn’t hunting and fishing, I of course graduated high school. I graduated from USU. I
had a composite major/minor in Advertising Design and Illustration, Photography and Drawing.
And after I graduated I went out and freelanced for awhile until my wife wanted more stable
paycheck. And so I went to work for Thiokol in their Art Department, I did all of their corporate
advertising. But I found out that my painting, my western painting, was a whole lot more fun to
do, so my father says, “come and help me build a building” (he had an old gas station here) “help
me build a building and we’ll see to it that you’ve got time to paint.” Which I couldn’t paint here.
I mean I did for awhile (this was through the ‘80s).
Business kind of sucked you up, and of course all the involvement with all the other issues, there
wasn’t a lot of time to paint. I’ve always enjoyed writing and communications because I had to
work with account reps, and writers. And I write a column for the newspaper right now, every
two weeks, as a conservative voice of the valley. And I feel myself going green sometimes. I
work as a government liaison for an energy development company – Vince’s company. I go down
and I’m usually the first contact with local governments and go meet the people and the ranchers
and the farmers. I worked real close with SITLA over the years, whether it’s on forest issues or
other issues.
BC:
And SITLA is?
GB:
School Institutional Trust Land Administration. They are the ones that give money to the school
kids, but it’s Trust Land Administration.
BC:
Right.
GB:
They own about, or are the care-takers of 3.5 million acres in the state of Utah. But for the 12
recipients, which are the universities and the school kids in the state, they’re an important entity.
But I work real well with them all. I don’t know why, but I get along real well with local people.
Now Vince (inaudible) Texas, Montana, New Mexico, which is fine. We’re all the same people.
But I get along well with them.
CP:
You got anything?
BC:
I’m good, fine. Do you have anything else you’d like to add?
GB:
Nope. This is a great place to live. We’ve got interesting times that we’re in the middle of right
now. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s sure going to be a ride!
[Laughing]
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�The economics and a new president. I didn’t vote for him, but I support him. Hopefully he can do
the job.
BC:
Yeah.
GB:
But you have to sit back and be pragmatic. Whether it’s a forced issue or an energy project – keep
the humor. I learned a real hard lesson six years ago. You can make all the plans in the world and
formulate your future, have your agenda written in stone, and it can all change. My wife passed
away, I have a different outlook on everything, and I really don’t mind where I’m at now. But I
do look at things a little differently.
BC:
One other question I might have is, would there be any folks that you would recommend that we
might want to interview on this project?
GB:
I would go talk to Val Simmons. He’s been – or John Borg – they’ve been real advocates of
multiple access on the Logan Canyon. And they have some really good views. John is a walking
computer. He knows every rule, every aspect of the Forest Plan; he’s a great asset, great person to
have around. Val is very vocal and he knows what the people want. And between the three of us,
we did our job. I’d talk to those two.
CP:
Alright. Well we appreciate it.
BC:
Yup, thanks.
GB:
If you come with a question …
[Stop recording]
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�
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Garth Barker interview, 4 February 2009, and transcription
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Garth Barker discusses multiple-use access for the Logan Canyon meeting with politicians at Multiple Access Conservation Coalition member about land access concerns experience as a member of Search and Rescue.
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Barker, Garth, 1949-
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Cole, Bradford R.
Pumphrey, Clinton R., 1984-
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Barker, Garth, 1949---Interviews
Barker, Garth, 1949---Childhood and youth
Recreation--Utah--Logan Canyon
Snowmobiling--Utah--Logan Canyon
Politicians--Utah
Multiple Access Conservation Coalition (Utah)
Land use--Law and legislation--Utah--Logan Canyon
Forestry and community--Utah--Cache County
Off-road vehicle trails--Utah--Logan Canyon
Volunteer workers in search and rescue operations--Utah--Cache County
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Logan Canyon (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Green Canyon (Utah)
North Logan (Utah)
Providence Canyon (Utah)
Tony Grove (Utah)
Utah
United States
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999
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2000-2009
21st century
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eng
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 2 Fd. 2
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Logan Canyon Reflections
-
http://highway89.org/files/original/4a0fa7a7420070da98af1739b08cbd16.mp3
443c2570e68967956a1ce14ce66b22cb
http://highway89.org/files/original/ae75b2113eb2fd69050bc275f6da44a7.pdf
8dcce733ab4a29305a892320625d6701
PDF Text
Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Scott Bushman
Place of Interview: Logan Ranger District Office, mouth of Logan Canyon
Date of Interview:
April 23, 2008
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Darren Edwards; Brad Cole
Brad Cole
Recording Equipment:
Marantz PMD660 Digital Recorder
Transcription Equipment used:
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Susan Gross
Scott Bushman, April 2009; Randy Williams, 17
March 2011
Brief Description of Contents: The interview contains information on the career of Scott
Bushman for the Forest Service. He was involved heavily in fire suppression and the Logan Hot
Shot crew. He also discusses how he first got involved in Logan Canyon as a youth in the Youth
Conservation Corps. He also gives a history of the Forest Service in this area and their
involvement, along with Utah Agricultural College (now Utah State University) in teaching
forestry.
Reference:
DE = Darren Edwards (Interviewer; USU graduate student)
BC = Brad Cole (Interviewer; Associate Dean, USU Libraries)
SB = Scott Bushman
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcript. Many of Mr. Bushman’s edits, including more
information on the topic, are noted in brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 1: A]
DE:
I am Darren Edwards. I am here with Scott Bushman and Brad Cole. It’s April 23, 2008
at 2:15 [pm]. I guess just to get started, Scott what’s your full name?
SB:
Jon Scott Bushman, spelled “J-O-N”.
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�DE:
And when and where were you born?
SB:
I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1953.
DE:
So have you lived in Utah your whole life?
SB:
Pretty much. I’ve lived all over the world, but pretty much this has always been my home
address for tax purposes so yep, yeah pretty much.
DE:
Could you give us a little bit more about just your personal history. Why did you travel?
Where are some of the places that you went to?
SB:
Well, I think like a lot of young people back in the late [19]‘60s and ‘70s, I was doing a
lot of hitchhiking and things like that, and I was in college. I remember hitchhiking quite
a bit around the western United States and I even hitchhiked to Alaska. Several times I
dropped out of school for a quarter and traveled, found odd jobs along the way and saw
new places. And I ended up, oh, I spent a lot of time in Central America and Alaska;
Europe and in the west here. I think a lot of that had to with – you know in my family, we
always did a lot of camping – that was kind of a family tradition. We spent a lot of time
in the outdoors. And I think it all kind of crosses over. When I was eighteen years old, I
was in high school; I applied for a job with the U.S. Forest Service for the summer. I
didn’t think I’d get it but I did. So I went to work in 1972 for the Salt Lake Ranger
District on the Wasatch National Forest and the YCC Program [Youth Conservation
Corps at Alta, Utah. The YCC was a youth work program that began during the Nixon
Administration.]
BC:
What types of things did the YCC do at that time?
SB:
Well, the YCC kids – I think there were 48 of us that lived at Alta – and our job was
basically to do “slave labor” project crews; we did trail work, we built campgrounds, we
hauled rocks, we did a little bit of thinning and pruning, but just a lot of different project
works. And it was a great job. We fell in line with the old CCC tradition – that is the old
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) from the 1930s. It was a residential camp located at
Alta so you went to the Forest Service office on Monday morning, [the camp staff picked
you up and they drove you up to Alta. On Friday afternoon they dropped you off back at
the District Office in Salt Lake.] If you had a car you could get home or your parents
would come and pick you up or we would usually just carpool with our buddies and get
dropped off at home for the weekend. Some of us would just turn around and go hiking,
or go back up in the mountains and go camping. I did that for a few years and that’s how
I really got involved with the US Forest Service.
Logan was a real special place. In 1973 the Wasatch and the old Cache National Forests
combined and it became the Wasatch-Cache. And what the Wasatch wanted to do was
make sure that the Cache felt like they were a part of this new forest because all of the
old Cache Districts on the Utah side went to the Wasatch-Cache. [So the entire Alta
YCC camp was sent to Logan. We felt that being sent to Logan was a reward for our
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�hard work], you know. We were detailed up to Logan for a week or so to do project work
on the Logan Ranger District. We were assigned to work up Left Hand Fork, where we
built a new Range fence in Herd Hollow. That’s where I first met the old District Ranger,
M.J. Roberts and his staff. And after that, coming to Logan for a week, in the YCC
program was the big prize. Everybody loved it up here. For the crew that worked the
hardest and did the best things and had the fewest accidents, their reward was that they
got to come up and spend a week in Logan camping out and doing project work on the
district here. So it was a great opportunity. And that’s how I first got introduced to the
Logan Ranger District – I think I was 19 years old. I remember I got my picture on front
page of the Herald Journal. I cut that out and it’s somewhere around here in the archives.
It was a lot of fun.
My earliest memories of Logan Canyon go back to probably the 1950s when we used to
always take our vacations up at Bear Lake. We would always come through Logan
because my dad had business here in Logan. He was a salesman, worked with the
department stores. So we would come here and he would work for a few hours, work on
his accounts, and then we would go up to Bear Lake and [spend a week at Gus Rich’s
Lake Shore Lodge. I don’t know if you remember Gus’s. It was sold and torn down in the
early 1970s. And that’s how we got to know Logan Canyon.]
DE:
So what are your hobbies and recreational pursuits now as an adult?
SB:
Well, I’m getting kind of a little old for what I used to do. I used to do a lot of hiking, a
lot of mountain climbing – I’ve always enjoyed that. I used to ride horses a lot and I still
travel a little bit but you get older you know, I don’t do the climbing I used to do. I keep a
sailboat up at Bear Lake and I spend a good portion of the summer up there sailing when
I can get off work and we don’t have any fires. [I still hike, camp and cross country ski
with my wife and kids when I get an opportunity. And I still do some horseback riding
here at work if I need check out a burn unit or fuels project.]
DE:
What is your title as a profession; what do you do for your profession?
SB:
Right now I’m the District Fire Management Officer. So my job is to run the fire program
– that means pre-suppression and to put out all the fires on the Logan Ranger District
which includes you know, everything from Idaho down to I guess down to Mantua and of
course the Wellsville Mountains. So I basically manage the fire program up here;
supervise the fire engine and the suppression crews. And I used to be the Hot Shot
superintendent for 20 years and I finally gave that up last summer and took this job (that
kept me away from Logan and from home quite a bit). Before that I was the Assistant
Engine Foreman on the District. I worked for Neff Hardman. Neff had worked here for
since probably – I think he started in the 1930s, went to World War II, came back and
then he got a full-time job after the war; he passed away a few years ago. But Neff was
my boss when I came here. [Before I worked for Neff in Fire I worked on the Young
Adult Conservation Corps.] It was another one of these Department of Labor programs in
it hired young people. We hired a lot of kids from Logan, from USU – mostly spouses
whose husbands were finishing up degrees and they paid them minimum wage and they
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�worked – it was a one-year appointment. And that’s what I came up here to do was work
for that program when I got out of college. I couldn’t find a job as a school teacher but
they offered me one up here. At that time I was [living in Kamas and working as the
Mirror Lake Wilderness Ranger. I applied for several Forest Service jobs that fall and
received 3 job offers. Logan was one of my job offers and I always loved the area so
accepted the Logan offer. With the new job, I moved to Logan in the fall of 1978 and
became a full-time resident.]
BC:
You mentioned the YACC –
SB:
Yeah.
BC:
You talked about hiring a lot of spouses – so mainly a lot of female workers it sounds
like?
SB:
Yeah, we had a lot of women on the crew and it was kind of interesting because it was a
time when the rest of the agency was looking at diversity and bringing women on to the
program and in Logan the complaint was that we had too many women. The old district
ranger was real concerned. There were a lot of really funny jokes about the old ranger,
M.J. Roberts. He was real old school and kind of uncomfortable with women doing
physical work. He would try to restrict them – he was afraid they would hurt themselves.
And the truth of the matter was a lot of these women were just as tough, or tougher, than
a lot of the guys. [Because many of women were a little older and more mature they
tended to be the squad bosses and work leaders. It was an interesting time. We had a lot
of fun and did a lot of great work projects for the District.]
Just kind of going back one of the memories we did we used to plant a lot of trees. Back
in the [19]‘60s and ‘70s the [District did a lot of timber clear cutting projects. A couple
of years after the logging project we would go in and do reforestation: plant trees. We
would have these huge tree planting camps. In preparation for spring planting we had to
cache our seedlings in the area in January. We would go into the Sinks, borrow one of the
Thiokol cats from Beaver Mountain and] then we would bury them under about 20 feet of
snow. As soon as the planting sights were clear we would dig tunnels in the snow caches,
find our trees and then we would set up our tree camps. We would put up all these big
tents, and usually it was in the snow. It was just terrible getting up there, but we would
live up there and we would plant 40-80,000 trees in a couple of weeks. We would haul
our own food up and the guys that did most of the work were the YACC [crew members.
We camped out and worked 10-12 hours a day and just stayed right on sight.]
There are a lot of stories about those times. These are like young, crazy college kids and
they made a little city up there. They built a hot shower, and we’re still wondering how
they did that – so they could shower at night. And I remember they even, up in the trees
they set up a wet bar [laughing], you know which was kind of illegal, but they did it
anyway they’d stick it up there and keep it out at camp. It was a lot of fun, but oh they
worked. It was just real hard work. You’d have to get up early to get your trees ready
and then you’d have to wrap them the night before. I can remember wrapping trees at 10
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�o’clock at night in a blizzard, when it was 15 to 10 degrees outside your tent and you’re
trying to get these things ready to go for the morning. So it was always interesting up
there.
BC:
Explain that a little bit more – you’re re-seeding, re-planting clear-cuts?
SB:
Yeah –
BC:
And the whole process of wrapping the trees and what exactly?
SB:
Well what you do – you get bare-root trees and the bare-root trees have to be frozen.
What we would do is in the fall (this is another great project we used to do) we would go
up in the canyon and we would climb or cut down cone-bearing trees. And we would
grab all of the cones we could – there would be bags and bags of them – and then we
would drive them up to [Boise, Idaho where our Tree nursery is located. The people at
the nursery would take the] cones and they would open them up, plant the seeds and then,
in a couple of years they would harvest them, wrap them in big boxes and we would send
someone to pick up the trees. [That way we knew we had seedlings indigenous to the
area. These were the seedlings we had in our cache. We would take those boxes and they
would be dormant, basically frozen. That’s why we buried them in the snow. Once we
got the trees to our camp the night before we planted them we’d open a box of trees,
measure the roots and clip them with scissors.] I think they had to be like 12 inches, you
know, depending on what they would say. So you would clip those off and then you
would individually lay them out in rows of 50, wrap them in burlap and soak that in water
and vermiculite. After they were soaked you would put it in your planting bag and just
leave it overnight. In the morning as the crews went out then they each would be given a
bag and then we would line up and they would have somebody that would go ahead with
a tool called a McCloud and they would scrape down through the grass about a 16 by 16
inch square of bare soil and then we had the next guy come by with the chainsaw with a
drill auger attached to it on the power head. They would drill a hole about 12 to 14 inches
deep; and the next guy would come along and put a tree in the hole and plant it. And
that’s what you did.
I can go up today and I can see the ones I planted back in [19]’79 and they’re doing really
well. It’s kind of fun to go up there. We did a lot up in Log Canyon Hollow area. Some of
those trees are probably 20 to 30 feet high now. We planted all through the Sinks area.
There are a lot of trees up there; they’ve been doing that for years. There’s one stand that
the Boy Scouts planted in the [19]‘30s, just out of Right Hand Fork, that are still just
barely hanging on, but they planted Ponderosa Pine which isn’t indigenous to this area so
they never really took off. It’s up in Willow Creek. It’s just kind of funny. They had a
nursery at Tony Grove and I guess, back in the Conservation Era, one of their
experiments to introduce Ponderosa Pine to the Bear River Range. There are actually two
or three coniferous trees up there that are doing pretty well, but the big experiment kind
of failed. They’re still alive but they’re barely ten feet tall! [Laughing] So, just an
interesting side line.
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�DE:
So if you could change anything about the career that you’re in now, what would it be?
SB:
Oh, it’s been a good career. I think probably I would have moved around a little bit more.
I spent quite a few years working on the Logan Ranger District and then they had a
reduction in work force and so I was let go: I lost my job up here. That was back in the
early [19]‘80s. And then I went back to school at Utah State University in Forestry for a
couple of years and was able to get my civil service Forestry requirements met and then I
left the area. I got another Forest Service job in Salt Lake for a year or so. I came back to
Logan in 1984 and worked as a seasonal for a few years. I think I probably would have
done better just to keep moving. I came back to the area because I liked it and then I was
offered an opportunity for another appointment with the Hot Shot crew. So my idea was
to take that appointment and then move on but I just kind of got – I got married, I had
kids, you know, we bought a place and so. We just ended up staying for probably longer
than we should have, but that’s why.
DE:
What was that – the Hot Shots crew?
SB:
Hot Shot crew is a fire crew: a 20 person hand crew, a line crew. The Logan Hotshot
Crew was established (there’s a real wild history about that) in 1988. Do you want some
background on that because –
DE:
Would love some background, yeah.
SB:
Well, you know when they first established the National Forest Reserve in Logan in 1903
they hired a local barber to be the first reserve supervisor, the first ranger – John Squires.
And I think that was pretty typical throughout the west. There seemed to be two schools
in the U.S. Forest Service back then. There were the eastern educated foresters from the
European tradition, sort of like Gifford Pinchot and his crowd; and then there were the
western forest rangers that were basically cowboys and ex-buffalo hunters and you name
it – just these guys that loved the mountains. So what they wanted to do was take what
they had in the west and teach them Forestry methods. Logan had the State Agricultural
College here and Forest Service begin teaching summer forestry course here in 1907.
When Ranger Squires resigned as the Forest Supervisor they brought somebody from
back east to be the [new Supervisor, William Weld Clark] – he was a Forester and he
began to teach summer courses up here at Utah State in surveying and forestry
techniques. Unfortunately he died – he had an accident getting on his horse at Card Guard
Station. He fell on his saddle horn while he was mounting the horse [it] created an
internal hemorrhage. I think it was back in 1907-1908, right around there. So they
brought Squires back in to fill in until they could find somebody new.
In the meantime there was a recognized need for Forestry education for these guys. So
back in the late 1920s a guy named Lyle Watts who was the Deputy Chief of the Forest
Service came to Logan and established the Utah State University department of Forestry,
the Natural Resources department. He later became Chief of the Forest Service. In the
1920s as Watts was putting the new Forestry Department together he wanted to bring the
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�working western foresters to Utah State and train them in Forest science and
management. [Watts felt very strongly that students needed] to have a summer program –
you know it wasn’t all winter and classroom studying. And so he started the USU
Forestry Camp up in Logan Canyon and that’s where that all came from. The problem
was that a lot of these guys were married people and they couldn’t afford to take the
summer off. They needed to work. And so Watts and the Department made an agreement
with the Cache National Forest to pick these guys up [after Summer Camp and give them
a job for the rest of the summer field season. Logan use to be the old Cache National
Forest Supervisor’s Office and it seemed to be a good arrangement for both parties. And
so every year the District Ranger would go up to Summer Camp and recruit 10 or 15] or
how many guys they could get and offer the students jobs here. Most of the jobs were
working in fire. They had a little fire crew. Anyway, over the years I think probably by
the 1960s it was pretty well-established that the Logan District would host a fire crew
every summer. And they even had patches that said “USU Fire Crew” on them and
“Wasatch-Cache National Forest.” Guys like – who was Gerald Ford’s son?
BC:
Oh, Jack Ford?
SB:
Yeah, he was on that – Jack was on that crew and Mike Jenkins was on that crew. Mike is
now a Forestry professor at USU. It is kind of interesting but within the Forest Service
community you’ll meet a lot people that worked on the crew back in the [19]‘60s and
70s. Once in a while and old crew member will come in and talk to me about it and want
to know how the crew is. Well, the crew was a pretty big thing for the Logan District and
when they combined the National Forest, when the Cache and the Wasatch joined
together they kept it going until the late‘70s. In 1980 the Intermountain Region decided
they wanted to establish a Hot Shot Crew on the Wasatch. So they took the money they’d
been giving to the USU Forestry Fire Crew and they established a National Hot Shot
Crew. They moved the crew to Kamas. The Wasatch Hotshots existed for three years but
they didn’t do too well. They had some, I guess they had some real problems with the
staff there and the community. [The crew members were pretty unhappy with the way the
program was run and complained to the Forest Supervisor. After three years the Forest
Supervisors, Chan St. John, decided the Forest was not going to host the crew anymore.
And so they gave the money back and that kind of fixed the problem that way.]
A couple of years later Dave Baumgartner, who was the new Logan District Ranger – he
came down from the Sawtooth – he really wanted to have the old crew back and so he
made a proposal to bring a new Shot Crew to Logan. The Region was still trying to place
a Hotshot crew in the Region. Placing a new crew in Logan seemed to make sense
because we had this tradition of the old USU Forestry Fire Crew. We still had all the old
equipment, you know, all the tools and stuff and the packs. The Forest Supervisor at the
time was Dale Bosworth. Do you know Dale? He was the Chief of the Forest Service
until last year and he finally retired. Dale thought it was a great idea so he got the
Regional Office to pony-up with the money. Dave established the crew but he couldn’t
find anybody to run it because it was a new crew. So he asked me to run it just to get it
started up with the idea that he could get me an appointment, you know if it became a
permanent thing. That is where the Hot Shot crew came. It kind of started with Lyle
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�Watts back in the 1920s [and you know it’s still here today. We still hire a lot of students
but now we have people from all over the country on the crew. We have also hosted
firefighters from Russia and Brazil. These are Wildland fire professionals that have
detailed with the crew to observe and learn American fire suppression methods and
organizational structure.]
BC:
What are some of the memorable fires that happened in this region that you’ve worked
on?
SB:
Oh, we’ve had some wonderful fires here. [Laughing] I think the first fire I ever worked
on in the Logan Ranger District was when I came up in 1973 on that range fence detail.
We had a fire up in Charlie’s Hollow up in Left Hand Fork. I can remember that because
we were rousted out of our tents and told to get down there and we’ve got to put this fire
out. We were all 18, 17, 16 years old. We loaded up in our carry-alls and drove down
there. The District crew just about had it out, but they let us mop up for about 30-40
minutes. The deal was that they had probably about 20 rattlesnakes crawling around the
fires edge where we were mopping up. This place was just lousy with rattlesnakes that
the fire had chased out. I can remember the Range Con (Conservation Officer) Stan
Miller, he was going around with a shovel whacking them and collecting the rattles!
[Laughing] I can remember the kind of scolding Stan for being so unfriendly to the
wildlife. But he was afraid someone was going to get bitten by them. Years later, when I
got my permanent job in Logan, Stan and I became good friends. Anyway, that was up in
Charlie’s Hollow.
We’ve had a lot of really interesting fires in Logan. And I hate to say some of them have
been just really fun. The way fires start around here is they are either man caused, like
kids playing with matches or hunters in the fall. But during the summer most of them are
caused by lightening strikes. In the 1970s and 1980s when we would get a “lighting bust”
on the District, typically you’ll get five or six starts right at the same time. That was
always fun for us guys; sometimes. We used to keep a heli-port down at the Logan
warehouse at the other side of town and when we got those afternoon lighting storms, it
seemed like it was always Friday night and you always had something better to do, you
know. You had a date or there was a movie or something like that. But Neff used to run
over and lock the gate and wouldn’t let us leave. He’d say, “You got to get your fire stuff
on because we got new starts and the helicopter is coming.” And so he would kind of
kidnap us I guess. But the helicopter would come, land; he’d give us a briefing, tell us
where we were going, divide us up into groups of two or three man squads; and then we
would jump in the helicopter and they would drop us off on these ridge tops all along the
front there. We got to spend the night there banging on these fires. [We would have to
stay on the mountain until they were out, usually by morning. The next morning we
would wait until the sun got up and then we would have our breakfast which was just
some kind of army ration, make some coffee and then right around 10 or 11 o’clock,
when we felt good about the fire, we could hike out and they would let us go home and
get some sleep. And those were a lot of fun.]
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�I think some of the biggest fires I’ve been on – well, I remember the year 1988. I
remember that year because that’s when we had Yellowstone burn.
BC:
Um-hmm.
SB:
And that was the first year that we had the Hot Shot crew here on the district and we
spent all summer in Yellowstone. And then when we got back everybody was so tired.
We got back in mid-September and we were ready to just – oh, that’s it – and about two
days later we had the White Pine fire, up in White Pine canyon. I was the initial attack IC
on that. I hiked up from Tony Lake and when I made it to the ridge above White Pine I
reported it at about 200 acres. It wasn’t that big but it was almost dark and fire look a lot
bigger at night than they really are. The dispatcher thought I was kidding so I repeated it
and he started ordering crews and helicopters. It was the biggest fire he’d ever seen in the
high timber. I’m not sure what it ended up, but it was the biggest fire I’d ever seen on the
Logan Ranger District. It burned most of White Pine basin. [We got it pretty much under
control by the next afternoon and turned it over to the State. The next day the fire blew up
again and the State Forester, Craig Pettigrew took it over as the IC. The fire was actually
on Utah State sections and not on the National Forest. By the time it was over we had
crews from all over the country working on it. We had a crew from Pennsylvania that
was assigned to the fire and they were kind of high maintenance. They were mad because
they thought they were going to Yellowstone, but Yellowstone had received snowed and
it was pretty well finished. So we got them and they turned into a problem crew.] But we
had some crews from South Carolina, some crews from the Carolinas that were a lot of
fun to work with. Good fire, a lot of pictures, a lot of good memories on that one.
We also had one up Spawn Creek that year. I think it was in October and it was just about
140 acres, again bitter cold I remember. That was a hunting fire, but I can remember the
thing being so dry that all you had to do was, you know look at a tree and it would go on
fire. I mean it was just bone dry up there. The fires we were getting were mostly hunter
fires. People would just do a warming fire and they would think they were out but they
would walk away and you know, they just start to smolder and two or three days later,
you know they were off to the races. Those were fun, fires but it made for a very long
season. I was glad to see the snow come.
I think probably as far as the media goes we’ve had several fires around Beaver
Mountain; one in [19]’89 and then one in the early ‘90s where the fire fighters got to ride
the chair lift up to the top of Beaver Mountain because that’s where the fires were. That
was kind of fun for them. It’s hard to keep track of all the fires. Fires on the Wellsvilles
have always been a painful experience. Our joke is “you’ve never really worked on the
Logan Ranger District unless you’ve carried a bladder bag up the Wellsvilles at two in
the morning through that brush trying to smell smoke out.” [Laughing] You know, that
was kind of your ritual of passage I guess, you had to climb the Wellsvilles. They don’t
tend to get very big, but it is so steep and hard to get up there with very few trails. Now
that it’s a wilderness area we look at them real carefully. If there’s not a lot of potential
we usually just monitor them or put in them in a Fire Use Status because they don’t tend
to move much or threaten anything. They don’t get big; they kind of just smolder around
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�for a day or two and then go out. So it’s not really worth spending the time and money to
go after them.
DE:
So how big were the bladder bags you carried?
SB:
[Bladder Bags? They’re “back pack pumps” and sometimes we call them “fedcos”
because that is the manufactures name. There are a lot of different terms for them]; some
of them aren’t very polite. They carry five gallons of water, so they’re about 45 pounds
because water weighs 11 pounds a gallon so. And that’s on top of your fire gear, which is
another 20 pounds and your tool and all the stuff you carry. So usually you really earn
your cookies when you climb up the Wellsvilles with that kind of weight on you.
BC:
I guess!
[Laughing]
SB:
And the fires are never near the trail! [Laughing] You’ve always got to bushwhack up
side of the mountain and usually it was in the dark. But good fun.
BC:
Have you seen the same – I know living in the southwest for a while a lot of the fire
problems down there were they thought caused by over-foresting and the thicket growth
that came in. Do you have the similar kinds of fire issues developing in this area of the
world?
SB:
Yeah, well specifically in Logan Canyon. I would say that’s a problem throughout the
U.S. now because of the fire control. Where you really see it is like in the large timber
stands in Idaho and Oregon and the northwest. California, because it is so heavily
vegetated and has a huge urban interface component. We live in an area which has a lot
of fire tolerance. What that means is a lot of the fuels are meant to burn. And as they
would say over at Utah State, “It’s not a matter of “if”, but “when.” But our fires haven’t
been the large, catastrophic fires that we’ve seen up north. A large fire around here would
be 100 acres. I think that may change. [Last summer we had a lot of new starts down on
the foothills, but once they got into the timber the fuels thinned out, and the fire behavior
would drop off. It was just kind of the consistency of the fuel type and patterns. Where
they weren’t consistent and continuous fire wasn’t able to carry. We saw this along the
7,000 foot level all summer long.]
As a student I can remember hiking up Cottonwood with Ron Lanner (he was one of my
professors) and drilling trees and looking at the ring patterns, you know to try and
establish a fire history. I think the Logan Canyon does have a history of fire. It is pretty
hard to find a stand of Doug Fir that doesn’t have some kind of a fire scar on the larger
trees. And just because we haven’t had a lot of fires in the last 100 years, well we have,
the pioneers recorded some, but I think it’s just a matter of time, you know. We’ll see
what this drought does; maybe not this year. [It’s been pretty wet out there this summer.]
BC:
Yeah!
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�SB:
When Albert Potter came through the canyon in 1902 he writes in his diary about a fire
up there by Stump Hollow (right across the street from where Beaver Mountain is) where
they had done some logging up there. Apparently some herders had decided that they
didn’t like the brush and so they were going to burn it off to just to get rid of it so the
cows could have more feed, and the sheep (because this was a major grazing area back
then). He writes the thing went all the way into Idaho and then some, you know
[laughing]. So it got away from them! I guess you could probably still find fire scars up
there.
DE:
So are you – kind of shifting gears I guess – are you a member of a religious community?
And if so, how has that affected your land use beliefs?
SB:
[Laughing] Well being from Utah, half my family were LDS, the other half are Seventh
Day Adventist and I’m kind of right in the middle. I don’t know if that really is kind of
good question for me, you know. My grandfather grew up in Arizona and he can
remember when he couldn’t go out and play because Geronimo was on the war path. He
was back in Arizona in the late 1880s and early 1890s. His Grandfather was part of a
colonizing mission down there. And they just had a real, I think, connection to wide-open
spaces.
My Grandfather was an interesting guy. He fought in World War I; he always believed,
you know, that the best President United States ever had was Teddy Roosevelt. He was a
Roosevelt Republican [and a conservationist. I think that idea of conservation, you know,
was a Republican thing. That was a long time ago, you don’t hear the word
“conservation” from the Republicans anymore, but those were different times. My
Grandfather ] was devout LDS but he seemed to think that the land somehow was part of
his destiny. There was an “LDS Manifest Destiny” that seemed tied to the land and he
used to say that he was here for a purpose and that was because the land would make the
people. Everybody says well, “we made this land.” He always said it was the opposite –
“the land made us and that’s why we’re here.” He really loved the wide open spaces and
he loved to travel; he loved to camp. That’s just the way he was. So I don’t know – They
say everything skips a generation? My dad, he kind of did that, skip a generation. He was
more of a, you know, a tie and suit guy. Dad was a businessman. He liked to camp but
not as much as my grandfather did. Dad never hunted; my Grandpa used to like to hunt
sometimes but he preferred to travel with the family and visit places he knew in his
youth. As for me, I think I was just kind of born into it, but I don’t know if you call a
religious ethic, maybe more of a cultural tie.
BC:
You mention that about the conservation movement, changing parties or disappearing.
Do you have any thoughts on why that’s changed like that?
SB:
Well, yeah I do, but I don’t know if I should say them! [I enjoy reading about Gifford
Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt. They were powerful men and this was a powerful
history with a powerful ethic.] And then I hear the [Bush] Administration decides they’re
going to sell National Forest lands to private investors to help pay for the war in Iraq and,
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�well you know. It’s just a real struggle. But it seems to me that in natural resource
management these days the real stimulus and motivation come from the other side of the
isle, you know. And the Administration seems to have other priorities; conservation is not
one of them; reclamation is not one of them. I think the budgets reflect that, but I think it
speaks for itself.
DE:
So you’ve covered a lot of the Logan area and had a lot of connection with different parts
of it. Is there one part of Logan Canyon that’s more special to you that you have special
memories connected to more than other areas?
SB:
Yeah, there’s a couple. My favorite area is the Mount Naomi area. White Pine Canyon
area is real special. [When I first came to the Logan District on my detail in [19]73 we
were able to finish our project a day early so we had a free day before we had to return to
Salt Lake. A few of us kids wanted to go camp, I think rather than just stay in the
campground. So the Ranger recommended – he drew us a little picture and said, “Try
White Pine Canyon. Go to this lake, Tony Lake and find the trailhead and just walk and
then you’ll see it.”] And that’s what we did. We got over to White Pine Lake and I can
remember there was a group of Boy Scouts in there. And they had a chainsaw, a sailboat
and they were shooting .22s. We hiked down to the lake and confronted them and were
threatened by the Scout Master. He told us to leave them alone and that he was a personal
friend of the Ranger. And so we left and we spent the night and camped down over the
hill out of gunshot range from these guys. But we thought it was strange. They brought a
Jeep up there to haul this sailboat, and it was a little sunfish type of thing. I thought it was
a real strange introduction to the Logan Ranger District and White Pine. But I loved
White Pine Canyon, Boy Scouts aside. I’ve got just a lot of good memories of the area.
We used to take the fire crew up there and we would train, we would go overnight and
we would train doing initial attacks in the dark; wild times.
I think another one of my favorite places is High Creek over Doubletop. There was a time
when I [used to do a lot of horseback riding as a boy. When I started working Fire on the
District, in the late fall, after fire season when things slowed down, the old fire control
officer – Neff Hardman – used to let me take a pack string and go work the trails in the
high country.] I can remember one fall packing up over High Creek Canyon North Fork
into Idaho and then trying to go around Doubletop and work my way along the ridge to
Tony Lake. It was always a disaster. It kind of got to be a joke around the District, about
me getting lost in the mountains. And I can remember trying to bring a horse around
Doubletop – I think the horse was pushing snow up to his chest, [and I think he started to
roll and we almost went off a cliff there. To get off the mountain I had to lead him down
Hells Kitchen. I remember the horse sliding down the snow fields sitting on its tail and
using his front legs trying to slow himself down. They had an early snow fall that year
but I couldn’t see it from the valley. I didn’t think there would be that much snow up
there.] But High Creek Canyon, both the north and south fork are just special. If I was
going to recommend a good, beautiful place to anybody it would just be that trail along
Doubletop and then on top of Steam Mill over to the White Pine area. You just don’t see
country like that around here. It’s all alpine, gorgeous, a lot of wildlife, you know,
especially if you get out at in the evening or early morning. If you’ve got a horse, and are
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�in the area you can always see something – usually an elk or a moose or something. It’s
neat country.
BC:
I got to warn you a little bit, I’m just worried about that microphone.
SB:
Oh!
DE:
That’s good; I didn’t even catch that, yeah.
So with all you’ve done – you’ve been involved a lot of different ways with Logan
Canyon – how have you contributed to the changes in the land use policies?
SB:
Well I don’t think I really have. As the primary fire staff officer on the District much of
my job is to administer policies, not to create policy. Policy decisions and direction
usually come from a higher source and we tend to do the groundwork, the fieldwork. We
make recommendations, but usually the decisions are made at a higher level. For
example, when we begin to establish the Travel Plan on the District we had direction
from Washington but we were the ones that actually developed and wrote it. [We did the
mapping, hosted the public meetings and worked out the nuts and bolts of the thing. Of
course we only made recommendations. The Forest Supervisor had to approve the plan.
The idea of restricting motorized use on the Logan Ranger District seemed was
revolutionary at the time. What it meant was that times were changing. It was driven by
the huge increase in things like ATVs and motorcycles. They had became really popular
but the damage they caused had become unacceptable.]
BC:
What year would that have been?
SB:
Oh 1970s, I guess. I mean I had never seen an ATV until they started popping these
things out, I [guess in Japan. And by the late1970s they were everywhere. At first I
thought it was kind of a neat thing; I think originally it was an off-highway vehicle or
whatever. And they were designed to just go on the dirt roads -- kind of a safe alternative
to two-wheel motorcycles. That really changed things, you know. By the 1980s it looked
like something had to be done and so the Washington office ordered us to implement a
“Travel Management Plan.” Washington and the Region gave us some parameters but the
Forests did most of the work. It fell to the Districts to go] ahead and begin a road survey.
So we surveyed all the roads on the District and then make decisions on what roads
should remain open, what roads should remain closed. We were given some criteria – but
they were real simple ones. The Ranger would ask us was how old are the roads and are
the roads creating resource damage. And so we kind of went on that. The Division of
State Wildlife had some other criteria they wanted to throw into the mix too. Those
criteria were related to Wildlife needs and were probably a lot more restrictive to
Motorized use than the ones we used. This was because they were dealing with a lot of
decimation of the elk herds and declining populations. [You know, we were losing all the
calving grounds; they were being overrun by folks on Snowmobiles and ATVs in the
spring during the calving. So the State Wildlife people wanted to see more roadless areas
or what they termed “refuge” areas.]
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�My job – and this was the greatest job in the world, this was so cool – I was tasked with
mapping every road on the District. They gave me a motorcycle (a little Honda 90) and
they gave me maps and said, “You get out there.” Me and two others seasonal employees
; a woman named Darcy Becenti and Tony Cowan from the timber crew spent all fall
riding every dirt road, motorized trail, 2 track and dispersed camping site and mapping
them. We had all the District quads and we basically surveyed all of the existing roads on
the Logan Ranger District. Then we [took the maps that we’d made and we sat down and
discussed each and every one of them with Dave [Baumgartner], the Ranger, and his
staff. We made recommendations on what we should leave open and what we should
close.]
I thought many of the roads, as far as our policy went, were very reasonable and viable. I
remember arguing, “We should probably just leave those open because they’re not
hurting anything and they’re not causing any resource damage and they’re providing
access.” We were pretty generous with wanting to leave most of the existing roads open.
Other roads that were [obviously kids trying to get someplace they shouldn’t and, or
where there was real erosion concerns, we pushed to close those. Once we have the road
closed we started to do reconstruction/rehab on those areas. And it’s been a constant war
ever since; there’s been violence, vandalism and there have been threats. It’s an
amazingly emotional issue. I think it just wears people out.]
BC:
Would this have been part of the Rare II [Wilderness Roadless Area Review and
Evaluation] process, or was it a different process?
SB:
Well it was part of it. The Rare I and Rare II were Roadless Area surveys in the mid to
late 1970s. This happened prior to the Travel Plan from what I can remember. I worked
on both of them and, as I remember it was just to identify roadless areas that might have
wilderness qualities for future designation. It was a process mandated by Congress.
During the Rare I survey, I was living in Kamas [Utah] and I wasn’t that involved in it. I
was the Wilderness Ranger up on the Highline trail. But when we did Rare II, I was
working in Logan and I remember being detailed down to the Supervisor’s Office in Salt
Lake and working on the maps and the planning process. Everyone worked a lot on it. It
was huge – reading and documenting public comments mapping veg. types, wildlife
habitats, recreation use, land ownership and land use. We did it all.
BC:
Was that kind of the beginning of the real public comment period, do you think?
SB:
I don’t think so. I think there’s always been a process for public comments – I think it’s
per law. But I think NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act], when the NEPA process
was incorporated into the Forest Service the public comment process was more
formalized. And that’s been kind of interesting. I think we had NEPA for years and I
wasn’t even aware of it. I was always the guy that would build the trails or put out [the
fires. I’m just a forest technician and all the big decisions are managed at a higher level,
through Congressional Law or Administration Directives in Washington.] We just kind of
implemented the direction that the Forest Supervisor determined were appropriate. He
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�says to close a road, we’d go get a ‘dozer and we’d go close it. If we were told to open it
up we would get a dozer and open it up.
BC:
That somehow segue into – how did the Mount Naomi wilderness and Wellsville
wilderness come about? Do you remember that process?
SB:
Yeah, I was there! Gosh, when was that? I can remember that Ranger M.J. at the time
was absolutely convinced that we needed a motorized trail to the top of the Wellsville
cone for his motorcycles. I think I came to the Logan Ranger District about the time this
was becoming a controversial issue back in [19]’78. I remember hiking up to the
Wellsville cone with the trail crew foreman, Tom Esplin and actually surveyed and
flagging out a possible trail. And then the Mount Naomi/Wellsville wilderness proposal
completely shut that down and I think M.J. was pretty angry about that. Eventually we
did build a trail up there but it was for non-motorized of course, and it was just across the
cone. It allowed horse traffic to get around the cone safely. But the Wilderness Bill, I can
remember when they had the congressionals here at the USU Forestry Camp. They had
Jim Hansen and a US Senator from Colorado, I can’t remember his name, but he ran for
President-
BC:
Oh, Gary Hart?
SB:
Yeah, Gary Hart. They did a fly-by in a helicopter of the proposed wilderness area and
then landed at the Forestry Camp. We all drove up and listened to them talk. Gary Hart
was very impressive; Jim Hansen was not; I think he fell asleep, he just seem
disinterested. That was my impression of Hansen. The Wilderness proposal was fairly
controversial and a lot of local people opposed it. It was a real battle and a compromise. I
think a lot of people – there were a lot of forces that just didn’t want to see wilderness,
not only in Utah but especially in Cache Valley. They just felt like there were too many
conflicts and limitations. [I believe all the private and state holdings up in Franklin Basin
were not included in the Wilderness Bill because there were people in the Cache County
Commission that wanted to see development up there.] At the time Beaver Mountain was
on National Forest land and it was under permit. I remember the Forest and the permittee,
Ted Seeholzer, for management reasons, had wanted to keep Beaver Mountain a small
day-use only type of ski area. As I recall, the conservation coming out of the Cache
County Council was something like, “we’re loosing money because we’re not putting in
condos” and “we need to develop up there and be an over-night, year round, destination
resort.” They were determined that Franklin Basin, since it was all privately owned – or a
lot of it was privately owned and State owned – that would be a good place to build a
second Aspen or something. And so we had that conversation going on. I think a lot of
that kind of thinking was why Congress and the Forest Service didn’t push the wilderness
area past the ridgeline, you know, onto the east of the Mount Naomi ridgeline. A lot of it
is just ownership.
It was interesting that these private and State sections in Franklin Basin were eventually
include into the National Forest system through the land exchange for the Olympics. At
that time there was talk about the possibility of extending the wilderness boundary into
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�the other side. [This was during the Forest Plan revision and the Forest was give direction
to propose 5,000 acres to the National Wilderness System. But there was quite a bit of
public and local political opposition to it, mostly from the motorized access community.
So we lost the opportunity and the Forest purposed additional lands for wilderness
designation over in the High Uinta Mountains, but not in here.] There’s a lot of political
resistance to it. You know with the roadless area and then the Forest Plan; it’s been fairly
controversial.
BC:
The public hearings, do you remember that were held here for the early [19]‘80s, the
Utah wilderness – was there much support in the valley, along with the opposition?
SB:
I think back in the ‘80s and the early ‘70s, just personal observations, you know, I’m not
sure how accurate they were but I think in the 1970s Logan was a small, predominantly
agricultural, college town, and it was a party town. I think Cache Valley had half the
population it does now. I remember that the politics seemed to be a lot more moderate,
agriculture oriented, and that was a good mix. And I think in the ‘80s that kind of
changed as I saw more and more developers sit on the County Council and less farmers
and politics becoming more right winged to extreme. The dynamic of the area seemed to
change. I think with the growth, urban development and the decline of agriculture
attitudes are much more materialistic. It seemed like we have become much more growth
oriented, and much less, you know, concerned with the quality of life or the protection of
our resources. Cache Valley has become a lot more polarized. I noticed that with the
snowmobile/cross country ski issue over the last couple of years. I’m thinking back to the
‘70s with the cross-country ski races and how well everyone seemed to get along. We
used to have the Temple Flat cross-country ski race, do you remember that?
BC:
Um-hmm.
SB:
Yeah and just how different things were then. If you tried to do that now there would be a
lot of organized resistance to it I can remember one of my jobs in the winter was that I
would go up once a week – and this is a great job too – and I would ski all through the
Sinks area and I would put poles on all the sink holes out there. Because snowmobilers
had just started to use that day-use and it was becoming pretty popular and we had some
bad accidents. The snowmobiles in the sinks would be moving pretty fast and sometimes
they would drive into a sink hole and they would disappear. I think we had a fellow that
broke his back and so the Ranger wanted us to put safety flag around the sink holes, so
we did. We did that for about two years and then somebody said that well if we did that
then we would assume liability, so we had to pull them out. But you know, I saw the use
really change in the Sinks. It went from predominantly a family sledding, cross-country
ski type of use, to pretty much snowmobile use only. And then of course with the trail
grooming from Hardware Ranch to the Idaho boarder by the Utah State Department of
Recreation, snowmobiling as become even more and more popular. It is now drawing
people from all over the State and the country, thanks to special interest groups and
advertising. So it’s a growing activity. But it hasn’t always been that way. This hasn’t
always been the “premier” snowmobile capital of the world, to quote a local booster. To
me it seems very recent of that type of use.
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�DE:
When did you first start to notice the shift when snowmobiles became really big?
SB:
[Laughing] When I was told we would no longer be able to prune the trail for the Cross
Country Ski race. The reason I was given was, “We’re not going to do it anymore
because of user conflict.” [Also, there was some problems with the keg of beer the
organizers provided at the end of the race. The Cache County Council had passed an
ordinance prohibiting kegs in the County. And I think (I can’t remember when the last
race was), but I thought that was sad. It was another one of these fun Forest Service jobs
that seem to keep disappearing. I looked forward to the two days you got to ski with the
course with your pruners and chop out all the dead fall so the skiers could get through. I
think the last race was probably in the – early [19]‘80s?]
BC:
Early ‘80s, yeah because it was when I was in school I think.
SB:
Yeah!
BC:
They finished off –
SB:
Yeah and then it just seemed like everyone had a snowmobile and that’s all you saw in
the upper Logan Canyon area. I remember one spring when I was helping Mike Jenkins
with his Fire Class– Mike Jenkins used to teach a forestry class on fire at USU. Because
he used to help me with my fire training for the Hot Shot Crew I would have some of my
fire folks go over and help him with his training. When he did his field day for his red car
fire class I would supply him with tools and instructors.
I can remember one year we were working up at Tony Grove doing some line
construction, there was quite a bit of snow on the ground, it must have been mid-May and
we had an issue with some of the snowmobilers that were unloading and going up Louis
M. Turner canyon to access the Tony Lake area. The canyon was closed to snowmobiles
but apparently it was the only way they could get to the Lake as the snow had all melted
on the Tony road. The Travel plan was new and most people didn’t take it seriously. I
had to stop class and go over and tell them they couldn’t take their machines up the
canyon. It was posted but the just rode around it. I called the office on the radio and was
told that it was illegal and I that I needed to stop them. [It was pretty tense and they were
not happy. They explained their side of the issue and the whole deal seemed like a big
misunderstanding. It wasn’t violent, but there was a lot of hostility there. And I didn’t
realize that snowmobiling was such a big thing, you know. [Laughing] When the snow
melted, you just moved on, but apparently not.] So I think that must have been in the late
‘80s – ’89, maybe ’88. But I noticed there was a lot more of a combative atmosphere
then, a lot more passion than in the 1970s. You know, as you get more use, you get more
restrictions and then you know it’s just kind of the way things are. You just tend to – if
you work for the Forest Service, you’re in the middle. You try to just kind of work the
middle, you know, and make a decision for the resource.
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�DE:
So you talked about a lot of ways that political changes and society changed and things to
influence the land-use policies. Can you think of any ways that the land-use policies have
influenced change themselves?
SB:
I’m thinking: Land-use policies that influenced change? Well, in the fire world, Smoky
the Bear could be… and “prevent forest fires” may be policies that have changed or at
least forced change. Such as the fire suppression doctrine in the 1940s and ‘50s to the fire
prevention message – is that kind of what you’re looking at, or? Fire Suppression to Fire
Management?
DE:
That, or just any of the things in society that maybe you notice a problem you create a
land-use policy and then the problem goes away, or you know with the snowmobilers and
cross-country skiers. Have there been any ways that the social structure has been changed
or has it adapted in any way to a new land use policy?
SB:
Well in the social structure I think what we’re seeing is more polarization which is
unfortunate, [particularly in recreation. There’s more divisiveness out there. And pretty
much what we’ve found is that segregation seems to work the best; which I hate to say it.
For example, because of user conflicts with the snowmobile/cross-country ski people,
just you know, segregating the extremist. Particularly with the cross-country ski
community because in their world the presence of heavy snowmobile use, well it kind of
detracts from their experience. If you ever ski you know that the snow compaction, the
noise, the smell; it’s just not the kind of experience you are looking] for. On the other
hand, skiers really don’t seem to impact the quality of snowmobiling that much. With the
cross-country skiers using the snowmobile tracks, I mean the snowmobiles may have to
slow down a little bit, but I can’t see a big impact. Personally, I ski whenever I can, and
snowmobiles in the area really don’t bother me too much. I can see segregation in some
areas because of just the huge numbers. Forty or fifty years ago it was pretty much
everybody being courteous and that sort of thing, you know, recreated together. I think
with many motorized users there’s a different value system and what constitutes a good
experience. I’m not saying one’s right and one’s wrong, but there is sort of that different
level experience that people demand or what they want to have for themselves. Some
need solitude, unbroken powder, some need speed and some want a party atmosphere.
So user conflicts would certainly be a big issue.
Fire is one. But I think growth and development, you know, nationally and locally trumps
everything. One issue on the Logan Ranger District is Logan Canyon. That’s always been
a huge issue: how much development do you want up there? The old ranger MJ was
passionate that Logan Canyon would not be turned into a utility corridor. And he fought
anybody, tooth and nail [laughing] to make sure that that didn’t happen. And then he
retired. The next Ranger that came in thought that some utility improvements would be
appropriate, you know. I think the big issue for us was really that the power line over to
Beaver Mountain and what that might curtail. Once you had power there then other
things could follow and I know that was a pretty passionate issue on the District and it
was debated long and hard in the district staff meetings. And it was eventually felt that
that was a reasonable concession, you know, for the ski resort. A lot of people felt like
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�that was going to be the beginning of an urban canyon boom. Once you got power in the
[canyon, development and sprawl would follow. That was because much of the land in
the upper canyon was under State and Private ownership.]
The land exchange was pretty big. Back in I think it was the [19]‘80s we did an
exchange. The state was looking for money trying to turn the state trust lands into
something that they could develop revenues to support the State public education system.
One alternative that they came up with was trade those state in-holdings on public lands
like National Parks, National Forests or any federal public lands and then trade them for
sub-surface mineral, gas and oil leases. The thought was these gas and oil leases would
generate huge amount of income to the schools. Everyone thought that this was a pretty
good deal. And this was the proposal that was what was negotiated out, but when it came
to the Logan Ranger District things changed. The Logan District was one of the few
Districts on the Wasatch-Cache National Forest that had large amounts of State sections
of land inside its borders.
[And so an exchange between the Forest Service and the State that seemed like a natural
thing that would benefit everyone.] But the political climate at the time was very pro
growth and that again, the County wanted to get something out of it, which was economic
development in Logan Canyon. [As we were told at a staff briefing, they (the Cache
County Council) went to Congress and complained that the exchange didn’t benefit the
County and that they would oppose it. The council did not want to turn Franklin Basin
over to the Forest Service because that would limit the kind of development that they
wanted to see. So there was some pretty sharp political maneuvering and the State was
given the sections around and including Beaver Mountain Ski area. These lands that
normally would have been administered but the State Department of Forestry were given
to the School and Institutional State Land Administration. The idea was that the State
could sell the lands to private investors and, or they could expand the resort and create
more of a tax revenue. So that’s why Beaver Mountain is under SITLA.]
BC:
Right, yeah, the state, yeah.
SB:
And there were some very, very passionate, and I can remember, emotional arguments.
That was when Dave Baumgartner was here [District Ranger]. And Dave would probably
be the one to tell you about that. But that was huge. We just felt like things just changed
you know. I felt like that really brought the canyon into kind of a threatened and
endangered status with that land transfer. I don’t know, it depends on what you want to
see up there.
BC:
Well, you know just from the fire perspective has there been an increase as residency has
increased up there has that caused different issues for fire?
SB:
Yeah, that’s another huge issue. It’s a national issue. That’s what we call the wildlandurban interface or the term we say is “WUI.” I know, I had to look it up too! [Laughing]
But in terms of the future I think nationally that is such a big issue, it accounts for billions
of dollars in fire suppression cost every year defending structures, mostly homes on or
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�adjacent to public lands because of all the in-holdings. There’s California, of course,
every year and last year in this Region we had the Sun Valley fires around Ketchum,
Idaho and around McCall, Idaho on the Payette. There’s a lot of private money, you
know, invested in those communities and a lot of beautiful summer homes up there that
were threatened. And it’s quite expensive to protect these developments. There is an
expectation from the public that their tax dollars will pay for protection. With regards to
Fire strategies our first priority has always been Public and firefighter safety and to
protect private property. But it’s the desire to protect these resorts, summer homes and
small towns that kind of drives the cost up and we are not trained to deal with structure
fires so there is a real safety issue here.
BC:
Has that always been the case?
SB:
Pretty much, yeah. It’s just that we’ve never had the amount of development on private
property in the interface that we’ve had now, you know. And it’s not just the private
property; it’s like putting 3-4 million dollar log cabins in the middle of a forest that is
going to burn sooner or later.
BC:
Right.
SB:
So there’s a huge expense in protecting those homes. As far as our area goes I think
we’re seeing, in my opinion, the biggest threat potential is going to be Rich County.
[With all the development going on, not only Garden City, but everything to the south of
Garden City we are gong to see some real problems.] And it looks like sooner or later,
one way or another, all that ground from the Idaho border all the way down to Round
Valley and Meadowville is going to be urban interface, second home type things. Most of
the big land owners, the ranchers have already sold or are looking to sale. They’re
adjacent right to the National Forest. So I think in the future there’s going to be a huge
responsibility. For the Forest Service of course, you know these are not National Forest
lands, but they are adjacent to public lands and we do have cooperative agreements with
state and private and so we are involved. Most of those fires, what we’re seeing now are
fires that start on private land and then run into the National Forest. That is what
happened here in Cache Valley all last summer. And then once they cut across that line
then it’s our problem and we go into a fire suppression mode. We’ll implement what we
call a shared resource and unified command organizational structure with the State and
local cooperators. I think the fire guys in Cache County and Rich County are great to
work with. From my experience, they’re some of the best in the business. I think the one
fun thing about all this is that it gives me a chance to work with those guys. They’re just
really great guys to deal with. They’re all about protecting houses you know, and we’re
about protecting trees. And so we kind of, we’ll do the trees, they’ll do the houses. But
they’re a lot of good energy when we get together on these local fires.
DE:
You said earlier that you’re not so involved in making the policy, just kind of they make
the policy and tell you what to go and do. Has there ever been a specific issue – you
know, a big one or small one – that you felt extra passionate about and so you tried to
influence then, the policy? Whether it was writing a letter or talking to somebody?
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�SB:
All the time – I have files full of letters that I’ve kept over the years! And I always try to
throw my two cents in. There’s been some really interesting policies. I think, boy, land
exchanges you know have been one. You know these are all internal discussions that we
tend to have. I remember one of the big policies we had was on bolting in Logan Canyon.
DE:
Bolting for rock climbing?
SB:
Yeah, this is rock climbing. And as a climber, I was against it. I was not just against it, I
was passionately against it. And that’s because I started working for the Forest Service in
Little Cottonwood Canyon. My first duty station was Alta, Utah. I kind of grew up at
Alta. I started skiing at Alta when I was six years old. Lived up there for years and I used
to climb all that granite since I was in high school. But that really changed. By the mid
1970s rock climbing became so popular in the canyon that it became kind of a
commercial zoo where they had vendors down there at the base of all these rocks, selling
equipment. There was no parking. There were just so many issues. There were no
restrooms there. And it was tough; sometimes you’d have to wait for two or three hours
just to do a climb if you wanted to wait in line. And I think there was a group going to
Utah State that thought that was a good think and they wanted to see the same thing
happen up here.
And so what we found out was one summer they had put up 200 bolt routes. Not only in
Logan Canyon but also in the Mount Naomi wilderness using electronic grinders and
stuff like that. And therefore once that got out, phone calls were made and then the debate
came. They came in and we had some interesting discussions; we had some nice tours.
There was the issue of the primrose up in Logan Canyon which is a rare and endangered
species and we felt at the time that was one thing we could hang our hats on to try and
reduce the level of that, at least limit the area. But I was pretty vocal on that. And I think
I used to – I would kind of email the Ranger with comments and personal opinions.
I think [I] drove the Rec. Forester, Chip Sibbernsen, crazy with my comments to the
bolters. He was in charge developing the climbing and bolting policy for the District. He
was such a nice guy and always trying to see both sides. Anyway, he took me with a
grain of salt. I guess I made him laugh. You know, they should have fired me, but I kept
it “in-house” and with things like that you have to. But I was pretty passionate. I thought
it was littering and what I was afraid of was that they would start to turn Logan Canyon
into a parking lot: vendors, and kind of a climbing destination playground. And this is
exactly what they wanted to do. I remember the discussion was that this was world-class
climbing and that people from all over the world wanted to come here and climb in
Logan Canyon around China Row. They said they were already actively promoting the
area with climbing magazine articles, guide books and that kind of stuff. Yeah, ask Scott
Datwyler about that. [I remember Scott was running Trailhead Sports which was the local
rock climbing supply store and he was kind of in that group too, or at least some of the
people in the climber group worked for him.] I think they finally gave up and moved on.
Their plan to make Logan Canyon a world rock climbing center didn’t happen. As far as I
know the bolting has really slowed down and they’ve kind of limited the bolting to
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�certain areas. They’ve closed off a lot of areas because of the primrose. So that was one
area that was oh, I got pretty involved in.
The other was the hardening of the Tony Grove picnic area up there. They wanted to
bring in asphalt pads and harden some of the sights and put a big trail around it. And I
was against that. [Laughing] I thought they should never lay asphalt near Tony and we
had a long battle about that. [Chip and the Forest Engineers wanted to harden the area to
accommodate more users and eventually turn the lake into a “Fee Demo” area.] It made
sense but a lot of us wanted to limit use and reduce impacts that way. I don’t like the idea
of charging money to use public lands.
The other one was Tony Grove guard station. We were looking into turning that into a
historical center and then putting the snowmobile parking lot out there. Some of us were
really against that one because we were afraid with the snowmobile parking lot adjacent
to the historic guard station we may see some vandalism and some damage. As it turns
out we’ve never had a problem at all, but you know, I remember that was a big battle, a
big discussion. There were plans to turn the [Tony compound] into an interpretive center
where they would have a full time host. The host would dressed up in period costumes,
do a little gardening and do interpretive programs for visiting tourist. In the past it’s
always been a working guard station and we liked it that way. We kept our horses there
and did a lot of work out of there every summer. We would run our trail crews, our pack
streams out of the station, when we’re working the Tony Lake or Mt. Naomi high
country. I don’t think they do anymore because everybody drives cars now, but we used
to ride a lot and we would work our crews out of there and we didn’t want to lose that.
What other battles have we fought? Boy, trails; keeping trails open, closing trails. I’ve
always been on the side that we need to keep the trails open. I think the Rec. people have
been on the side that we can keep them open, but if we can’t maintain them you know,
maybe it’s time to let some of lesser used trails go. So they’ve kind of shut down some of
my favorite trails, or stopped doing maintenance. They just don’t have the money to do it
anymore. So that’s an issue.
Road issues are always there. I think one of the most difficult issues I remember dealing
with was the reconstruction of the road and bridges in Logan Canyon back in the 1990s.
Another hot issue is the constant battle with the public over road maintenance. Boy, it is
difficult to get folks to understand that the money and the time and the effort we’ve spent
on trying to keep the backcountry roads clear and up to a good standard. I mean, the
public constantly complain about road conditions. You could spend a million dollars on
them and everyone is happy. Then it’ll rain and then the hunting season starts and then
the high school kids are up there with their four-wheel drives and put ruts in them, you
know and the roads are worse than ever. It just seems like it’s a loosing battle – and then
we don’t have the money to go back and fix them again for three years. We do everything
kind of a three year rotation, so that’s always been a big battle.
DE:
So who would you say were some of your most influential teachers, both in your field
and just in your interactions with the canyon; either formal or informal?
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�SB:
Well, I think Neff Hardman. He was the GDA (the General District Assistant), bachelor
farmer from Mendon. Neff had worked here, grew up in Mendon; he died in the house he
was born in. And Neff, he just loved the Forest Service; he loved the country around
here. He was a great teacher and had a great work ethics and a great land ethic. He was
kind of a legend too. I mean, I knew about this guy years before I ever met him, you
know, just rumors down south in Salt Lake about Neff. M.J. Roberts was an interesting
guy, interesting Ranger. I think he had some good qualities but a lot of people thought he
was a little bit heavy handed and like to micro manage. Some of the people that worked
on the District when I started were really good people but Neff seemed to hold everything
together. I really, really appreciated his influence on the District. Another person I met
when I came to Logan was Ann Shimp.
BC:
I’ve heard – didn’t she write the guide book with Scott?
BS:
Yeah, Ann was here when I first came. Then there was Sabina Kremp that ran the YCC
program, and Mike Jenkins over at USU, he was kind of an old Forest Service Logan
boy. As far as the canyons go, you know, there are a lot of fascinating people that sort of
haunt them. Some of the old herders that you run into are really interesting. I really don’t
remember all their names. Some were local but a lot came from all over world, from
Europe, Mexico and South America. I can remember the names of some of the owners.
They may or may not be worth remembering but the guys that work for them and have
been up in the canyons for years, they’re good people to know. They know the country,
and they just have kind of interesting sense about them. You meet so many interesting
people up there.
I meet old Forest Rangers now and then, old Forest Service guys that wonder around and
make sure things are still being run properly. I don’t write their names down, but I
should. They’ll come up and they’ll talk your ear off if you let them. And that’s good.
Ted Seeholzer, who owns and runs Beaver Mountain, has been up there forever. Ted’s
boy used to work for me and I think he’s kind of managing the place now. His name is
Travis. He was on the Logan Hot Shot crew back in 1996. Anyway, Ted’s always been
an interesting character in Logan Canyon and he’s had some real influence on some
important issues. I think anyone that likes to ski in Cache Valley doesn’t want to risk
getting on the bad side of Ted.
DE:
What was their last name again?
SB:
Ted Seeholzer? Ted Seeholzer
DE:
Seeholzer.
SB:
Yeah, and Ted’s been up there forever. I can’t say forever, but from before my time.
BC:
Did you ever know Doc Daniels?
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�SB:
Very well. Yep, my first experience with Doc was seeing him running around in a
meadow on the School Forest in the sinks. He was on one of his study plots chasing a
porcupine around with a baseball bat trying to whack it on the head. [Doc hated
porcupines because they ate his tree seedlings.] When I came to USU as a student, Doc
was semi-retired but I knew him through the work he was doing with the Forest Service
and Utah State University when I worked on the District. But I knew of Doc long before I
came to Logan. When I started working for the Forest Service back in the early [19]‘70s
a lot of the guys that I worked with were Utah State University Forestry students and they
use to talk about Doc all the time. Back then you couldn’t be a Forestry Graduate at USU
unless you could get passed Doc, you know, in his silviculture class. Silviculture class
would kind of make you or break you and Doc was sort of the terror of the Forestry
department. And I knew Doc through Cache County Historical Society. He loved Cache
Valley History and would go to the meetings. A few years ago I was asked to give a
presentation on the history of the Logan Ranger District and the Cache National Forest. I
didn’t know it but Doc was in the audience and every time I missed something or got
something wrong Doc would shout out and correct me. I was getting kind of mad but
when they turned on the light Doc waved and everyone laughed. Doc always came to the
meetings to correct us and make sure we got it right! Yeah, we know Doc. We’ll miss
him. Dick Shaw just passed away too, this last month –
BC:
Yeah, I heard that.
SB:
And Dr. Shaw was my old Botany professor when I was a student. He used to kick
around quite a bit up in Logan Canyon. He use to tease us Forestry Students because we
to take his botany class. He thought we only cared about trees and he liked wildflowers.
He told us once, “If you guys can’t/couldn’t cut it down with a chain saw you didn’t want
anything to do with it.” I have a lot of good memories of my old forestry professors at
USU – Carl Johnson was one of my professors and the Extension Forester from Utah
State. He wrote the books on native Utah plants and sort of pioneered conservation
education in the elementary schools. Carl just did all kinds of good things for the
department and the community. He liked his students and it was always fun in his class. I
remember spending hours going on Carl’s field trips. They were always fun and not to
demanding. Going up the canyon with him was interesting but he loved to talk and
sometimes it got a little long. So there are a lot of people in the canyons that you meet…
you run into and come to know. A lot of the folks that I knew have passed on. When I
first came here there was a gentleman that worked for us who could remember logging
back in the 1910s and ‘20s when he was a boy with his dad, from Wellsville. His name
was Albert Johnson and Albert remembered [coming over Callie Canyon in a wagon and
bringing the lumber down the canyon to the sawmill in Logan. Now a lot of them are
gone; but I enjoyed knowing them and hearing their stories.]
DE:
What are some of the books or writings, if there are any that have influenced your
feelings about land-use management and policy?
SB:
Oh, well you know I think from early on there are some great books out there. But if I
was to give you one book you know – I’ve got thousands of books at home. Gifford
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�Pinchot’s Breaking New Ground; it’s a great read. I’ve got some good books on the self
– oh, what do I have? There’s a bunch of books over there.
BC:
What strikes you most importantly about Pinchot’s book?
SB:
What I like about Pinchot was his energy and his passion. He just has a passion for
conservation and service, I mean beyond anything I see today. The early 1900s was a
very formative time in the country’s history, and it was a progressive time and it was an
exciting time. There were new ideas, people with energy and high ideals and resource
conservation was a new kind of “cause” – brand new. They were just walking into
something for the first time, starting from the ground up. And if you read it, you know,
you feel that excitement and purpose. I read about Pinchot and Roosevelt a long time ago
in High School and college. I really thought Breaking New Ground was a powerful
book. I read a lot of books; I think you know now my background and training is not all
in Forestry. I’m a trained historian, not a forester.
BC:
Your initial degree was in history then?
SB:
Yeah. And Geography; I had a double major. And so I used to read a lot of crazy history
books when I was a kid. History and adventure were my first love. I always enjoyed early
American history, adventures, mountainmen, frontiersman type things. I think I was
reading those frontier [adventure books from the second grade on; I think most kids my
age did. Our heroes were Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. And I think the heroes these
days are like the Power Rangers, or –]
BC:
Yeah! [Laughing]
SB:
It’s just kind of a different generation. I don’t know – outer space, cyber cops or
something like that.
BC:
Utah State went through a period where they hosted a lot of writer workshops with fairly
prominent writers that came in working canyon. Were you ever involved in that at all?
SB:
No, but Ted Kindred was. I think you’re going to interview Ted.
BC:
Yeah, right.
SB:
Yeah, Ted – that dirty dog [Laughing], he used host a dinner for the Western Writers
Conference at his summer home in Logan Canyon for the writers. Ted loves interesting
people and good conversation.
BC:
Um-hmm.
SB:
You know, Ted had a summer home up at the mouth of Beirdneau Canyon. Ted and I
were really good friends; we both collect books. And I’ve got a lot of signed, first
editions. And every time I think I’ve got something really neat, Ted has it, plus five more.
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�BC:
[Laughing]
SB:
But he used to go up and he would always find out which writers were coming to his
dinner and he would go buy their books. And then during the course of the night he
would get the books out and have the authors them sign them. And I think his funniest
one was Edward Abbey; I guess he’s got some good stories about Abbey.
BC:
Yeah.
SB:
He’ll be a good one. I was never involved. That must have been before my time.
BC:
I was thinking – it seemed like Tom Lyon was involved and stuff.
SB:
Yeah. I remember Tom. Tom’s boy actually worked for me.
BC:
He passed away?
SB:
Yeah, in the avalanche in Logan Dry Canyon. Max Lyon. He’d worked for the YCC and
he worked for me in the YACC program. He was a good kid. One thing I remember
being really pleased about when I first came here was that District had the YCC program.
We had a great camp, we had great leaders, and it was fun to get to meet the kids from
Cache Valley. I remember Paul Box – Thad’s boy – was in it. They had a lot of USU
professors’ kids in the camp. We also had the “born and bread” kids, you know, the
farmers, the ranchers, the locals. And it was just a great mix, and what a great opportunity
to kind of integrate a whole generation to public land use and conservation. [Ronald
Reagan – it was one of the programs he axed, you know, when he became president. All
those national conservation and public work programs went away.] But I thought it was a
great program. That’s how I started in the Forest Service. I was in high school, it was the
early [19]‘70s Earth Day movement, you know, and “the Environment is going to be the
new frontier” type of thing. As for the YCC’ers, I keep track of some of the kids. I hear
things about Paul once in a while from his dad, and some of the other ones; I’ve done
better with some of the leaders.
DE:
Are there any other particular stories you’d like to share that we haven’t probed at you
with questions yet?
SB:
On Logan Canyon? Well, a lot of time up there wondering around, you know. I can think
of a lot of thunderstorms where you’re caught up on Mount Naomi and ducking for
cover, and you know, all of those good things. When I first came here I did a lot of
climbing in the canyon – no bolts.
DE:
Traditional?
SB:
Yeah, well, just chalks and so that was a good thing. It’s been an interesting kind of
career. As far as work goes I think some of the more interesting projects we’ve done have
been the wildlife habitat improvement with our juniper cuts up in the canyon here. We
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�used to do those and it wasn’t so much that we did them, it was the crazy ways that we
used to try and get our poles off the cliffs and down here to the highway. Back then we
would pick them up throw them off a cliff, pick them up at the side of the road and load
them on a trailer. We would take them down to the boneyard which is across the street
from Zanavoo; then we would soak them in creosote and that would be our fence post.
We did that for years. That was always a fun job; it was dangerous job and I’m just
amazed we didn’t get someone hurt, you know, working when it was four below zero
we’d be up there with our chainsaws, climbing cliffs and trying to do little things. It was
fun.
BC:
[Laughing]
SB:
Oh, gosh, a lot of burning in the fall. That used to be one of our fun projects; we’d burn
slash piles in the early winter. Just as we’d get a couple feet of snow on the ground we
would go in and burn. And we had some pretty interesting times there. You know when
Ranger Dave came he was excited about burning, he wanted to do spring burns and I
think I can remember we were real worried about these things getting away from us, but
he encouraged us. He wanted to try and get all the slash cleaned up. And Dave was very
progressive in his thinking. He was thinking wildland fire use and reduction in fuels way
before it became in vogue. I can remember the problem we had was that we work until
about 10 o’clock at night or midnight, and then we would pull out and drive down the
canyon to the warehouse. The idea was that the night air would cool them off and the
piles would go out. I think we were chasing burn piles around in August – it was really a
bad idea because some of the big piles never went out. But it was kind of fun coming out
of the Sinks about midnight; it was interesting not only for the animals you saw out on
the road, but for the sneaky timber thieves who were up there stealing lumber at two in
the morning! [Laughing] And so that was kind of fun – come up and there would be three
guys loading up fire wood at midnight and we would have to stop and have a
conversation with them. But yeah, that was fun.
DE:
I guess my last question – what should Logan Canyon, the Logan Ranger District, look
like if it’s a healthy system?
SB:
Well, I think if it’s a healthy system, I think you would want to see a stabilization of
growth, public use and the maintenance of conditions. When I say maintenance of
conditions, I think the last hundred years you’ve seen a tremendous improvement in
range and timber, than what was there say, 100 years ago – 1908. The photographs bare
that out. But the user conflicts seem to be on the rise. Land management is becoming a
social issue and a political issue… and societies’ priorities are changing. Today, when
there is a conflict between conservation and resource protection and politics, more often
than not, politics wins and the land looses.
BC:
Right, yeah.
SB:
You know we had a huge controversy with grazing issues in Logan Canyon a few years
ago: cows and sheep in the watershed. We still do but the truth is; things look pretty darn
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�good up there. You go up there, you walk the ground and you look at it and it’s not in bad
shape. I don’t think livestock grazing is a real threat as long as we use good management.
I think the greatest threat to resource quality in Logan Canyon is a lot of new
development and I’m talking the urban-interface again. And I think that could happen.
And I think that’s going to have a huge impact on not only people that use the canyon for
reception but on water quality, wildlife fire protection and scenic quality. It’s just not the
urban sprawl and the numbers of people It’s also all the paraphernalia they bring with
them. I think that you could see something real similar to what you’re seeing on the
Angeles or Cleveland in southern California today. You’re going to have too many
people and interest fighting over land use and management priorities. I’m not sure I
would trust all motives to have the best interest of the Forest and the public at heart. I
think it is [important try and maintain the environmental integrity of the canyon and
protect wildlife habitat and the quality of the water. If we want to do that then we have to
make some hard choices, and use is going to be more and more restrictive. And I hate to
see that, but I think that’s probably where we’re heading. You just have more people
wanting more access and having great demands on the land.]
DE:
Brad, do you have any more questions?
BC:
No, I think I’m okay right now.
SB:
Was this of any value to you, or?
BC:
Yeah, it was interesting.
DE:
This is very interesting, yes.
BC:
Great, yeah.
DE:
Well, thank you very much for your time today.
SB:
You’re welcome.
DE:
Again, this is for the Oral History of Logan Canyon Land-Use and Policies Project. And
Darren Edwards, Brad Cole and Scott Bushman. Thank you.
SB:
Thank you.
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�
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Scott Bushman interview, 23 April 2008, and transcription
Description
An account of the resource
The interview contains information on the career of Scott Bushman for the Forest Service. He was involved heavily in fire suppression and the Logan Hot Shot crew. He also discusses how he first got involved in Logan Canyon as a youth in the Youth Conservation Corps. He also gives a history of the Forest Service in this area and their involvement, along with Utah Agricultural College (now Utah State University) in teaching forestry.
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Bushman, Jon Scott, 1953-
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Cole, Bradford R.
Edwards, Darren
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Bushman, Jon Scott, 1953---Interviews
Bushman, Jon Scott, 1953--Career in Forestry
Forests schools and education--Utah--Logan--History
United States. Forest Service
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest (Agency : U.S.). Logan Ranger District
Logan Interagency Hotshot Crew (Utah)
Hitchhiking--West (U.S.)
Youth Conservation Corps (Utah)
Vacations--Bear Lake (Utah and Idaho)
Forest fires--Utah--Logan Canyon--Prevention and control
Young Adult Conservation Corps (Utah)
Tree planting--Utah--Logan Canyon--Anecdotes
Utah State University. Forestry Field Station Camp
Forest fire fighters--Utah--Logan Canyon
Forest fire fighters--Training of--Utah--Logan Canyon
USU Forestry Fire Crew (Logan, Utah)
Forest fires--Utah--Wellsville Mountain Wilderness--Prevention and control
Utah State University--Faculty
Wildland-urban interface--Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest
Forests and forestry--Multiple use--Law and legislation
Wildlife conservation--Utah--Logan Canyon
Land use mapping--Utah--Logan Canyon
Land use--Law and legislation--Utah
Utah--Politics and government
United States. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969
Land use--Utah--Logan Canyon--Planning--Citizen participation
United States. Wilderness Act
Rock climbing--Law and legislation--Utah
Pinchot, Gifford, 1865-1946. Breaking New Ground
Baumgartner, Dave
Roberts, M.J.
Range management--Utah--Logan Canyon
Utah. School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration
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Oral histories
Interviews
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Logan Canyon (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Alta (Utah)
Logan (Utah)
Bear Lake (Utah and Idaho)
Bear Lake County (Idaho)
Rich County (Utah)
Herd Hollow (Utah)
Tony Grove (Utah)
Beaver Mountain (Utah)
Cache National Forest (Utah and Idaho)
Yellowstone National Park
Wellsville Mountain Wilderness (Utah)
Mount Naomi Wilderness (Utah)
White Pine Canyon (Utah)
High Creek Canyon (Utah)
Doubletop Mountain (Utah)
United States
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999
2000-2009
20th century
21st century
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eng
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 2 Fd. 6
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Logan Canyon Reflections
-
http://highway89.org/files/original/509f27206759d6edf1d7e77e23b54b41.mp3
34659bfa06a5d0b9d134ce7d3a5c4703
http://highway89.org/files/original/e566740ec0489f8f2fe614dca02881b6.pdf
2f1ecf5962716452b8083b8faff4bf9e
PDF Text
Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Dennis D. Austin
Place of Interview: Quinney Library, Utah State University, Logan UT
Date of Interview: 18 February 2009
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Barbara Middleton
Barbara Middleton
Recording Equipment:
Radio Shack Tape Recorder, CTR-122
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Susan Gross
Barbara Middleton; Dennis Austin; Randy Williams (8 March
2011)
Brief Description of Contents: Dennis Austin discusses his career in the Division of Wildlife
Resources and all the time in the field he spent and his role and opinions on various policies
involved; he also talks about his role in influencing and teaching land owners about conservation
easements.
Reference:
BM = Barbara Middleton (Interviewer; Interpretive Specialist, Environment &
Society Dept., USU College of Natural Resources)
DA = Dennis Austin
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcribed. As well, Mr. Austin edited/deleted some
words/portions of the interview for clarity. All additions to transcript are noted with brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 2: A]
BA:
[It is] Wednesday, February 18. We’re on the Utah State University campus in the
Quinney Library Conference Room [conducting an interview for the] Logan Canyon
Land Use Management Oral History Project. My name is Barbara Middleton and our
interview today is with Dennis Austin.
Dennis, would you please introduce yourself and give us a little bit of your background,
biographical information?
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�DA:
Dennis Duane Austin and I was born on May 4, 1947 in Salt Lake City. I grew up in Salt
Lake, came up to Utah State University in 1967 after spending two years at the
University of Utah in the business or mathematics. And on the lark came up here and
walked into the Dean’s office and said, “Who can I talk to?” And they sent me over to
Dr. [George B.] Colthrap. Ten minutes later I was signed up in the Watershed program.
BA:
And at that time who was the Dean of Natural Resources?
DA:
The Dean of Natural Resources I think was Thaddeus Box.
BA:
That was Thad?
DA:
I believe it was Thad.
BA:
And Dr. Colthrap was a professor in Watershed Sciences.
DA:
He was.
BA:
Okay.
DA:
I graduated with a Bachelors in [19]’70, a masters in ’72. I worked briefly for the Bureau
of Land Management (BLM). I had a career with the Division of Wildlife [Resources:
DWR] in Utah for about 30.5 years, with almost 22 of those years or so at Utah State
University in a research capacity; the last nine or so years, as a biologist for the Cache
Unit in Northern Utah.
BA:
Okay.
DA:
Retired about 2003, and since have continued to do many of the same things I was doing
professionally, but now do them as a volunteer.
BA:
Back to your BLM reference – where did you work with them and what was your
position?
DA:
Oh, it was just a summer internship up in Malta, Montana.
BA:
Doing what?
DA:
Range inventory.
BA:
And you mentioned the DWR – there’s a large part of that (22 years) where you are
associated with USU and research. Can you tell us how that worked with DWR and
USU?
DA:
That was an extremely unusual situation because it was a cooperative position in that the
university [Utah State University] provided the facilities: the room, the research
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�opportunities; and the Division of Wildlife paid my salary and directed the research
issues.
BA:
Okay.
DA:
And my supervisors were first, Arthur V. Smith and then Phillip Urness and they were
also in very unusual appointments in that they were paid half-time university and halftime the Division of Wildlife (even though they worked full time here at the [Utah State]
University).
BA:
That was for 22 years, focusing on what areas?
DA:
Primarily big game/livestock relationships. This project began about, probably 1950 with
Art Smith. And then later on after, oh probably somewhere around 1980, I changed the
title of the project to “Wildlife Problems,” solving problems. We expanded our role from
just habitat and animal relationships to problem-solving. For example, depredation was a
very big part of my job for many years, in terms of research.
BA:
So it became part of something called “Wildlife Problems”? Has that evolved into
anything else?
DA:
The whole project ended about 1994 when DWR ran into financial difficulties.
BA:
I just wasn’t sure if there was another unit that had picked up that issue.
DA:
After the project was eliminated by the Director, research in Utah (from the wildlife
perspective) ended up on a consulting basis (like with BYU and the co-op unit here) and
there was no further research being done (that I’m aware of) by DWR employees. Maybe
on an in-house basis a little bit, but not much and not very technical.
BA:
So in that time that you were here, you obviously have spent time on the Cache National
Forest, as well as in Logan Canyon. But before we get real specific to Logan Canyon, can
you just give us an idea of the territory that you did cover? Let’s start with the largest and
then we’ll focus down on the smaller, local scale.
DA:
Well as a research biologist at the university we just went where the research needed to
be done. I had projects out in Uinta Basin, out near Dinosaur National Monument. I had
projects out in the west desert on the Sheeprock Mountains. I had the depredation studies
that went basically from Cache Valley and Rich County, clear down to Paragonah (in
southern Utah), catching part of the area down by Price. [We did projects in the high
Uintas] we put research sites all over the state. We had a really good mix. And my
research experience was very broad.
BA:
In terms of those areas, like the Uinta Basin, was there a specific focus for being there? A
specific wildlife or group of wildlife?
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�DA:
Yes! Each research project had its own goals and research questions. The first one dealt
with Pinion-Juniper habitat. The state and the Bureau of Land Management had been
doing rehabilitation work for Pinion-Juniper for decades – clear cutting and chaining.
And the question that we started with out there was, “Does it really help in terms of
habitat and wildlife?” And that was the first major project I worked on. And then it just
went from there.
So there were a lot of projects!
BA:
And just another detail on the west desert – what were you doing out there?
DA:
That study was looking at summer range because most of our big-game ranges – the
winter range is the controlling factor – whereas out on these desert ranges it’s the amount
of summer range. And so from a wildlife management perspective we were trying to
figure out carrying capacities, how it was limiting, deer diets and nutrition, and habitat
selection. [After three or four years], we came up with, I thought, some very good
conclusions.
BA:
Great. That’s helpful just to get an idea of how far ranging you were. Because what we
are going to focus on today is looking at the Cache National Forest, specifically some of
the work that you’ve done in Logan Canyon. Okay?
DA:
Okay.
BA:
So let’s move into that area. And again, 30 years you’re with this program, but the
program is taking you all over the state.
DA:
It has.
BA:
So what were some of the problems that you were approaching in Logan Canyon and
when you looked at wildlife? And again, I know its Logan Canyon and the forest and
some other entities.
DA:
Let me back up just a half a step.
BA:
Okay.
DA:
Because one of your questions asks, “What is the first thing you can remember?”
BA:
Yes.
DA:
“In Logan Canyon?” When I came up here in 1967 I took a social dance class and I met
my future wife. Probably the earliest memory I have of doing anything in Logan Canyon
was a ski trip with her. We cross-country skied from Franklin Basin and ended up at dark
at the Logan River and I carried her across the river!
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�[Laughing]
BA:
Oh, that’s great! Was she a skier?
DA:
We were skiers. She was a skier and I was beginning – that was probably my first
memory.
BA:
And that’s cross-country skiing we’re talking about?
DA:
That was cross-country.
BA:
So, tell me about the gear you used on cross-country skiing in that –
DA:
Still have it.
BA:
Do you really?
DA:
Yes.
BA:
Wooden skis?
DA:
Yes, wooden skis. And this year the lamination’s finally started coming off and I had to
retire them – and that was just a month ago!
BA:
[Laughing] And that was 1967?
DA:
Yes, so basically 42 years on wooden skis.
BA:
That’s great.
DA:
Okay.
BA:
So that’s your first memory. And Ann – we’re talking about Ann Austin?
DA:
Ann Berghout at that time.
BA:
Would you spell that last name?
DA:
B-E-R-G-H-O-U-T.
BA:
Thank you. That helps our typist. Ann Berghout, who is now Ann Austin and is the
Assistant Provost?
DA:
Vice Provost.
BA:
Vice Provost at USU?
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�DA:
Vice Provost over Faculty Development and Diversity.
BA:
Thank you.
DA:
Okay, now. My research in Logan Canyon was minimal, but I did do a lot of data
collection, especially as a biologist.
BA:
Tell us about the data collection.
DA:
I always felt like our biologists were not collecting as much data as they could have, and
as much detailed data. So when I took over the biological position I did things that either
hadn’t been done in years, or I began new projects. One of them was snowshoe hares.
Nobody knows anything about snowshoe hares, basically, there’s very little data
collected on them. But I set up plots on snowshoe hares and began looking at track counts
and pellet group accumulations over winter and kept that data going until I retired and
then the Forest Service subsequently has picked that up and is using those plots. Those
are probably the longest term set of data that we have on snowshoe hare in the state, and
maybe the intermountain region.
BA:
Hmm.
DA:
And those data are available. I also started setting up wing barrels for forest grouse.
BA:
What is that?
DA:
In other words, when hunters harvest birds and come out – if you have a wing barrels set
up, you can request that they deposit their wings in the wing barrel. I started doing that to
try to keep track not only of populations, but to determine the ratio of ruffed to blue
grouse or dusty grouse.
BA:
So ratio of species.
DA:
I kept that up for ten years as well, and those data are available. As soon as I retired, that
ended! I also set up a series of over winter big-game transects which looked at browse
utilization by species and pellet group accumulations. And I not only did big game: deer,
elk and moose, but I also did rabbits, to get a really good idea of the relationship and the
number of animals on the range and the habitat utilization. I did that for ten years or so
and as soon as I retired they (DWR) didn’t do that anymore either!
BA:
That’s interesting – you comment on that – with the data collection is that there was not
enough being done. What was it like prior to your establishing some of these?
DA:
[With] the snowshoe hare, there was absolutely nothing being done. The forest grouse
probably amounted to checking a few hunters from our law enforcement people. Now, on
the other hand, there’s been a forest grouse check station at Blacksmith Fork for many,
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�many years; and I continued to do that and I think that’s been more or less continued
since. That’s probably the longest set of data anywhere in the state (or maybe anywhere),
in terms of harvest to forest grouse from a check station standpoint. And those data are
available for many years.
Then I also restarted the deer check station in Logan Canyon. They’d run it back in the
1960s maybe, or the 1970s a little bit, and then because of one year where they [DWR]
had a couple of car accidents at the check station they quit doing it. And so in 1994 when
I took the position I re-upped with quite a bit of objection [with them] saying, “This isn’t
going to work, you’re going to run into accidents,” and that sort of thing. So I put out a
dozen good signs that slowed the traffic way down and we ran that check station every
year for ten years [without any problems or accidents.] I think that’s still being run. The
changes in the populations of deer being harvested are enormous and that data set is
clearly shows that, clearly shows that. Those data are also available.
BA:
Give us an example of what kind of changes you see, like in the deer harvest.
DA:
Well, I’m now recalling from memory, but some of the earlier data – and I worked at the
check station in the mid-80s (I think it was 1984). We would check 200 deer coming out
on the opening weekend. As I remember, there were data back in the 1960s when they
ran that station and they checked 400 deer on opening weekend, more or less. You’ve got
to go back because we had these severe winters that not only crippled our deer herd and
killed them, but they annihilated the winter range because of the extreme overuse. Then
because of the lack of livestock grazing the browse couldn’t get going. The competition
wasn’t favorable to browse production which sustains big-game winter. Anyway, we had
the die off in ’83-’84; we had the die off in ’91-’92. The ’91-’92 was the last really major
statewide die-off and we’ve never recovered from it. And so when I was a biologist – the
ten years that I ran it – we ran a check station there on opening weekend and instead of
200 deer we were checking somewhere between 60 and 90, somewhere in that range.
Then we’ve had more problems in Logan Canyon with the increased traffic, the speed of
the traffic, highway deaths/highway mortality. Now I think this last year they checked
somewhere – they’ve been checking somewhere between 30 and 40 deer the last few
years. I think they had 28 this year. The number just continues to go down.
All these longevity data sets are all available.
BA:
Now when you are at a deer check station as the biologist, what are you checking for? I
mean what are you looking at, specifically? Are you looking at fat? Teeth? Tongue?
DA:
[Laughing] Well years before, at most check stations all they (DWR) do is count the
number of deer.
BA:
Okay.
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�DA:
And that’s all they do: buck, doe but that’s about it. As a research biologist working out
on the desert – the Sheeprock Mountains or out in the Uinta Basin on Diamond Mountain
area – we did quite a bit more. When I started to do the Logan Canyon check station, I
started collecting considerably more data when the deer would come in. I look at the
number of antler tines, spread of the antlers, the age of the animal for sure.
BA:
From teeth?
DA:
From dental. We were collecting teeth for [inaudible] and then I developed a fat index
that is an index to physical condition of deer going into the winter (which is at the
zyphoid process) and then there were a couple of other measurements that I just can’t
bring to mind right quick. Anyway, the state adapted the method for at least a few years. I
know that throughout at least the northern region everybody was doing it the same way
and they were using seven pieces of data that we were collecting. For several years we
did it all the same, but I don’t know what’s being done now.
BA:
Now mule deer aren’t just in Utah; so when you look at your partners where the mule
deer population is, were they watching what you were doing in terms of the data
collection and starting to mimic that? Were you leading the edge here?
DA:
I don’t know. I know that I published that paper on fat depth at the zyphoid process, and I
know that it was used in Utah. I had a few inquiries from Colorado. I know it was used
with white-tail deer in either Minnesota or Wisconsin for awhile, but I don’t know
whether it was picked up and how permanently it was used. It’s kind of one of those
things that, you know, it’s good to know but what are you going to do with it? I was
trying to tie it into when to start over winter feeding? You know because of severe
winter, when do you start feeding deer in the winter? And that was my idea because if
you’ve got a deer herd that’s going into the winter in skinny condition you may want to
start a little earlier; your criteria may loosen up a little bit.
BA:
And these winter feeding stations . . . . can you give us idea of where some of these might
be or have been?
DA:
The Olympic year was 2002 and in 2002 during the Olympics, all the officers in the state
basically, were tied into the Olympics and so I was up here basically alone. If you
remember we had record snowfall that year.
BA:
Right.
DA:
We had 22 inches in the valley in one day, and more on the mountain and I was the only
one here. I was working – I don’t know, 100 hour weeks [laughing] trying to keep up
with all the difficulties and the problems. That was also the year that we fed deer in
various stations and it took a little bit of gearing up to get the state on board to do it,
because they had to authorize it. But that year we kept track of what was being fed and
we kept track of die-off rates. And that particular year feeding was very effective in
survival rates. I have those data.
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�BA:
And so you’re basically feeding at the mouth of the canyons in Cache Valley?
DA:
Mouth of the canyons. We had about 12 or 13 feeding locations that were authorized; we
had three over in Rich County. It really made a difference on those sites in terms of
survival.
BA:
And you’re feeding what? Alfalfa?
DA:
We fed primarily alfalfa and that’s been recommended for years because that’s what we
fed our tame deer. We fed them alfalfa a second and third crop ad libitum (meaning as
much as they wanted), and then we would feed a little bit of deer pellets or lamb growth
pellets which are basically the same thing. Deer pellet composition is just a little bit
different, but the land gore pellet worked great and it was commercially available. And
then we would use rolled barley for ice cream. That’s what we used to train them and to
tame them down because they would eat it out of your hand with the rolled barley. It was
just a favorite.
BA:
Interesting. Because I have seen feeding stations around the valley and I know there’s
one in North Logan at Green Canyon.
DA:
Correct.
BA:
Yeah.
DA:
Yes, and we still do that. We still feed them on occasion if the conditions are right and
the Division of Wildlife approves it, and then we have volunteers that are set up. And it
helps, it really helps. The earliest feeding that was done on the Cache was done in the
1940s, and I believe the researcher was Rasmussen.
BA:
Okay.
DA:
They fed in what used to be the deer pen facility, just south of Green Canyon, between
Logan and Green Canyon. There’s about 120 acres in there that was sold to Logan City
about 2004 for a cemetery and other things. That was the first feeding experiment that
I’m aware of anywhere in the west. They fed on the range out there – and they would
feed up to 1000 head of deer a year on this range. Then they kept track of their losses and
that was the very first feeding experiment, and obviously was successful.
BA:
And as an experiment – again, is the question we’re looking at – “how do we get a
healthier population during the winter?”
DA:
Yes.
BA:
Okay.
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�DA:
And feeding works. There is absolutely no question about the fact that feeding works.
Phil Urness did a summary of feeding that had been done in the west about 1995 – that’s
a published paper. Then I have the exact data from our feeding experiments in 2002.
Then Chris Peterson, a PhD (I think she’s finished with her PhD at USU now) has done –
that’s what her PhD was about: the effects of feeding on wildlife deer populations. The
effects on their habitats, and how well they’ll survive and reproduction, that sort of thing.
We pretty much know what it does and if you have a bad winter and you run out of
browse, feeding makes a big difference. If it’s just a normal winter, it’s not going to
really make much of a difference in terms of reproduction success.
BA:
How does it affect other wildlife? Is there any connection with available forage or
movement of animals?
DA:
Well, there’s always the competition with elk. Because elk are the competitors – they’ll
go out and out compete anything we have on the mountain. They’ll out-compete deer,
they’ll out-compete moose, they’ll out-compete pronghorn. The only thing they can’t outcompete, basically, is bison. And the reason is that with most of our wildlife species they
don’t herd up in large groups like elk do. But elk in the wintertime are more sociable,
they get in large groups, and then they get into an area and they camp. They just kind of
camp on an area and chew it up and then move on to the next area. Whereas for instance,
mule deer will walk in small groups of two or three or four, or even larger groups
sometimes, but they’ll walk through an area and take a bite of a shrub here, and a bite of
a shrub there and just kind of move through. Whereas an elk will get in their groups and
they’ll find, “Oh! I like this bush.” And they’ll eat it until it’s all gone. [Laughing] That’s
one of the major differences and that can create conflict between those species. Moose
tend to stay up higher, but moose tend to do the same thing, except they’re usually single;
moose will hunker down all winter in a very small area and just stay there all winter and
just eat whatever is there.
BA:
So, the other question I guess is there a down side to feeding?
DA:
Well you do have disease problems occasionally, but not very often; and you do have
habitat destruction in the vicinity of the feeding grounds.
BA:
What do you mean?
DA:
Because they just use everything. It’s just basically you over-utilize the shrubs and it
causes decadence and then usually mortality of the shrubs. But the deer pen property is
kind of interesting because it was purchased in 1937 for research. The reason they
purchased it is because the early guys out there noticed that this is one of the two major
areas on the Cache Valley bench where the big game (primarily mule deer) stayed in the
winter time, so that’s why the state purchased it. The other area was the Millville face.
That tends to dry off – not dry off – but the snow tends to melt on it sooner and you have
more open ground all winter and that’s why it was purchased; it was a very effective
winter range for many years.
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�It was used by research. Art Smith did the very first piece of research up there in 1947
and he compared areas grazed by livestock and areas ungrazed by livestock on deer
winter range. That was the first big game/livestock relationship study, I believe, ever
recorded. I think that was published in 1949. But it came directly from that area and then
I went back and re-did his data in the mid-[19]80s (I think that was published in [19]84).
I compared his data – same ground, same technique, but the change had been that
livestock grazing had ended decades ago. So the habitat had gone back to a situation
where the differences in plant communities between where his old fence line was were
almost gone. There were almost no differences after 30 years of utilization without
livestock – deer utilization in the winter; livestock utilization in the spring.
BA:
Interesting. So these two pieces of land: the Millville and Logan deer pens were
purchased by DWR, and that’s because you’re saying the face melts off so it’s an easier
place for the deer to herd up; better vegetation because of that?
DA:
Well, in the winter time it melts, leaving the ground open and allowing the deer to move
around. And it has a little bit warmer micro-climate, which makes a difference in the
winter time. The Millville face and the face up here between Green and Logan Canyons
(which is sometimes called “Saddle Mountain”)
[Stop and start recording]
[Tape 1 of 2: B]
BA:
This is [Barbara Middleton, I’m here with] Dennis Austin, we’re on Tape 1 and we’re on
side 2. And this is February 18, continuing our discussion.
DA:
If you go out on the Valley View Highway, toward the Wellsville Mountains and pull off
the road and look back during the winter on the Cache range, you can see Saddle
Mountain baring off of snow before any of the other mountain ranges in the area, except
for the Millville face. The Millville face tends to bare off at about the same rate. Very
interesting pictures.
BA:
So you have a weather condition there and you also have pre-existing patterns in the
wildlife that they’re already coming down to those areas probably for those very reasons.
DA:
That’s correct.
BA:
So no other downsides then to the feeding operations?
DA:
Costs. The costs almost never justify what you pick up in survival. The costs are just
enormous, even with free man-power it becomes extremely costly. If you have
organizations such as the Mule Deer Foundation or the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
that are supplying the money to run the feeding operation then it helps everyone. But the
costs are just prohibitive to do it.
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�BA:
So those might be some of your partners then, in that.
DA:
You have to have the partners in feeding.
BA:
Are there any other partners that would help– would the cities assist in any way?
DA:
Oh, sometimes; private organizations sometimes do, ranchers do. It’s pretty variable,
depending on what the interest is. You could just about have any group volunteer to help,
and they do.
BA:
Even like scouts?
DA:
Scouts have helped; Pheasants Forever have helped, Audubon I think has helped. So it’s
just a matter of who is interested and wants to put a little money into it.
BA:
Just so our listeners can understand the feeding operation, you are via truck delivering the
food to the sites on a daily basis? A weekly basis?
DA:
A daily basis.
BA:
A daily basis. So all those sites have to be accessible in any kind of weather?
DA:
Right. So you have to be able to go up on a vehicle. Now on a couple of occasions we
stock-piled materials away from the road. The guys went in there on snowmobiles and
daily took out a little bit out of the feed stock. But that was only one case. Generally
speaking, you have to have access.
BA:
So what time of day do you re-stock this?
DA:
Oh, it doesn’t matter – just when the volunteers have time.
BA:
Okay.
DA:
In the evening is usually the case, but some people did it in the morning.
BA:
It’s interesting to me because we have one of those in North Logan where there is food
being put in and I go up and see that it’s there, but I didn’t know what the parameters
were with it. But that’s fairly serious when you’re talking about the snowstorms, like
you’re mentioning in 2002 –
DA:
Yes.
BA:
-- significant snows like that and you have animals dependent on the food brought out.
DA:
That’s right.
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�BA:
The dinner bell.
DA:
It was a very drastic situation because we had all the factors line up: we had massive
over-winter loss on the Cache National Forest that year. It was interesting, they got all
ready for the Olympics and the storm was supposed to come in and drop all this snow in
Salt Lake, but it didn’t make it to Salt Lake. It dropped it all in Cache Valley. And it was
such a heavy storm – there are some people that think there was cloud seeding that went
on for the Olympics, and that was one of the reasons that it was such a heavy storm. But
that’s never been verified.
BA:
And there’s a very distinct line where that snow –
DA:
That’s exactly right.
BA:
Yes, yes.
DA:
We really got hammered!
BA:
That’s very interesting. You know, it’s interesting too for me to look at the transition of
the research when you’re saying there were other things you could’ve collected for other
kinds of reasons. And that’s helpful, I think, for the listener to understand how that
transition happens. But you also mentioned then that as you leave and as either people
retire or as policies change, that some of those activities don’t continue. Could you talk a
little bit about that?
DA:
Yes, that’s pretty true. We have transitioned in natural resources. Logan Canyon is a
good example from the biologist in charge spending most of their time in the woods and
in the field, to spending most of their time in the office and on the computer. This is a
transition that has taken 30 years. When I retired, I was probably the only wildlife
biologist left in the state that spent at least half my time in the field. I was probably
spending 65-70% of my time in the field. I was shocked when my colleagues were saying
how little time they spent in the field anymore. An example was one of my colleagues
(and I won’t say who) we were talking about his work and he says, “Well, I do the same
job you do, but I’m only spending 10% of my time in the field anymore.” And that was
the figure he gave, 10%. I was dumbfounded because biologists just did not use to do
that. Because it takes so much time to deal with questions, and public, and telephones and
trying to keep up with the bookwork and the computers – I wouldn’t do it! And didn’t do
it.
But it’s a real transition. So when a biologist sets up transects and data collection means,
the new biologist probably doesn’t have the time to do it, plus the fact that the new guys
taking over do not have the background in knowing how to do some of these methods.
BA:
Why is that?
DA:
They just didn’t learn.
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�BA:
So the NR training has changed?
DA:
The NR training has changed and we don’t teach field methods very much. Summer
Camp did at USU. Summer Camp is gone. We just don’t teach field methods hardly at all
anymore. A good example is when Chris Peterson started her doctoral study and needed
to learn how to measure browse and vegetation in the field, I was the one that taught her.
Not the State Division of Wildlife because there’s nobody that knows how to do it.
BA:
And normally a student like that would have received that training somewhere in there.
DA:
You would think, but it’s not being taught hardly anymore – anywhere that I am aware
of. Because we don’t use it anymore. We don’t use it, we don’t go out and we don’t
collect browse transects, we don’t determine over-winter use. We probably don’t even
collect pellet group samples to determine density of deer on winter ranges. We don’t look
at the range conditions like we used to, and it’s because we just don’t have the expertise
or the time to do it as biologists.
BA:
So it’s an expertise and experience factor, but it’s also time and cost?
DA:
Time and cost. We have switched over from field work to data sets that we use instead.
And instead of having the biologist go out every year and look at his range, we have the
range trend crew which looks at the area every five years. So every five years we get a
piece of data that looks at long-term trends, but we have no idea what’s going on in those
intermediate years. Instead of going out in the field and looking at elk and trying to do
moose like I used to do and classify them, now we use helicopter counts and that’s what
we rely on. Helicopter counts are great: they give us some of the best data we can
possibly get. But that’s what we rely on because it’s quick, it’s easy. It’s very expensive
but it’s effective. So we use helicopter counts to count elk and moose. And that works
extremely well, it gives us good data sets, and then we don’t do anything else.
BA:
Well, exactly. When you talk about the deer in the previous station data that you
collected – you’re getting the number, but you’re not getting the quality.
DA:
Yes.
BA:
So you know, quantity, but not quality of a population.
DA:
Right. We use harvest numbers and modeling to determine our populations. But the
relationship of the number of animals and the range conditions is not looked at except
every five years. And then only during the summer – kind of a situation that only gives us
long-term trends. And the long-term trends are not good. That’s true for Logan Canyon.
We are losing our browse and our vegetation and our carrying capacity for deer a little bit
every year. In the 1950’s, Art Smith stated that curl-leaf mountain mahogany was
providing the (now I’m trying to remember exactly how he said it) – it was one of the top
three, if not the number one browse species in terms of winter diet for mule deer on the
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�Cache unit. Now you’d have to find a very big mule deer to reach that vegetation because
it’s all been highlined.
BA:
Right.
DA:
And now the elk have used it up to the point that they can hardly reach it. The moose are
having a hard time too. So we have lost that vegetation, not because of over-use, but just
because of the maturity of the stands; because curl-leaf mahogany does not reproduce.
But the point is that we are gradually losing the carrying capacity of many of our big
game winter ranges. Logan Canyon is a good example where we have lost considerable
carrying capacity. You go up on the mountain and you look up there and you see junipers
all over the place – but there is nothing else. There is very little understory left under it
because it has all been utilized extremely heavily, then you get decadent plants that are
low in productivity, no reproduction and then you get mortality. And it’s hard to get it
back.
BA:
So you’re talking about major stand structural changes?
DA:
Major stand structural changes, yep. Also whenever we had fires on our winter ranges,
we end up with cheat grass. As you know from experience trying to plant, it takes a lot of
effort to re-plant browse and often we don’t get much success. I know of places where we
have replanted areas, oh five or six times, and still have almost nothing coming back. A
lot of it is because of the difficulty of south and west facing slopes that dry out quickly
and then the competition with the non-native weedy species.
BA:
So it sounds like a wave that is just getting stronger and larger and almost – I mean what
does it take to turn that wave? What does it take to make a major change?
DA:
Well, the best thing that we can do on most of these ranges is to re-incorporate livestock
grazing. Because it was livestock grazing that got us our good winter ranges. Then as we
developed we gradually removed livestock from our winter ranges and built houses or we
just – on the Forest Service grounds, some of the BLM ground – we just don’t graze it
anymore because of the difficulties of highway traffic in the bottom of the canyons. It just
doesn’t get grazed. Most of our foothill ranges are a climax community as a grassland. If
you go way back to when the pioneers came into the Salt Lake Valley and a few years
later up here in Cache Valley, our foothill ranges were grasslands and there were no deer
because they needed browse to sustain them in the winter time. It was the livestock
grazing that created the browse complement. Then as livestock were reduced (beginning
about 1935), we gradually lost our browse complement in many areas.
BA:
Why was the reduction in 1935?
DA:
The mud rock slides of the 1930s from overgrazing caused all of a sudden land managers
thinking to go to more of a conservative grazing strategy, especially for the Forest
Service. We had the mud rock slides and they did contour trenches on mountains (which
you can still see in places). So watershed became more important than livestock
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�production and that’s when grazing numbers began to decline. They’ve continued to
decline even to today because of those kinds of concerns; erosion and over-utilization.
Riparian and adjacent habitats are extremely important also.
BA:
So at the mudslide point in 1935 –
DA:
In that era.
BA:
In that era, in that time period – you’re talking about the Wellsville concern? Would that
be one of the examples with the overgrazing on the Wellsvilles?
DA:
Well, I think it was really broad-spread. In that time period, every landowner that could,
had livestock. We were running cattle and sheep on these mountains to the point where
they were creating dust areas on the meadows in the summer. It was just extremely
overused. And it was not just Utah, it was the intermountain area, totally. If there was a
blade of grass, watch out! It was probably going to get eaten. [Laughing] But it did create
winter range for us.
That winter range gradually increased from, from when the pioneers first came here,
probably reached a peak right in the 1930s someplace in terms of development. But our
deer population hadn’t caught up with it yet. So our deer population probably maxed out
in the 1940s. It took a few years to catch up with all that vegetation productivity. Of
course we had some bad winters in there too, which kind of reduced those herds and kept
them down. Then once the deer population got really heavy, then they started overutilizing that winter range forage base which caused it to reduce gradually. Not only from
lack of reduction in livestock use, but from over-utilization by deer. So those two factors.
BA:
Okay.
[Stop and start recording]
BA:
Alright, we’ve turned the tape back on again. And I’d like Dennis to mention – he
mentioned early on that he was born and raised in Salt Lake – but was there any
connection with any family land use traditions that you can think of?
DA:
Not directly, but indirectly, yes. My father came back from the war. He and his brother
found a stream up near Coalville. It was the south fork of Chalk Creek. At seven years
old I began fishing in that stream on private property. I’ve continued to fish that every
year, with the land owner’s permission since (and got to know them very well). In about
1995, I first started talking to the family about putting their land into a conservation
easement. Last year they put half of it in – about 2500 acres – and this year they’re
planning to put the rest of it in.
BA:
That must be gratifying!
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�DA:
That was kind of my long-term connection with them. They thanked me for it. They said,
“You are the first one that ever suggested this.” So that’s a connection. Then about 1993 I
sat my family down because we’ve been saving money for about ten years, we had an old
van and we needed to replace it and we also found a piece of land up in Wyoming that
was for sale that I really liked. So I sat the family down and asked them, “We’ve got
$8,000 in the bank, how should we spend it?” And the kids said, “That’s not a question!”
[Laughing] We bought 40 acres up in Wyoming!
BA:
Great!
DA:
I’ve written about that. That became a family connection that has done our family
tremendous good.
BA:
And whereabouts is that?
DA:
Oh, that’s just inside the Wyoming line on your way to Jackson on the little stream called
Cold Creek.
BA:
And when you mention that you’ve written about that, where -- ?
DA:
Oh, that’s in my Herald Journal writings.
BA:
Okay. It’s interesting because you open that up with direct and indirect connection with
family, but your father got you started fishing. You must be very proud of what that grew
into as far as working with the family.
DA:
Oh yes. My daughters are better fly fisherman than I’ll ever be – they’re better than my
sons! [Laughing]
BA:
You’ve returned to that stream with them?
DA:
Oh yeah. Every year for – I was seven – so it is 54 years. And good relationships – I see
the land owner almost every year. Of course, the original landowner has passed on and
now we’re looking at his sons (which are also very old now). But it looks like they’re
going to get it all into an easement.
BA:
That’s great.
DA:
So, nice piece of protection.
BA:
So it’s not only your immediate family, it’s also families that you connect with – in this
case, through a landscape connection with the creek.
DA:
Sure, oh sure.
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�BA:
Can you just explain for our listeners that are not in natural resources what a conservation
easement is? What it means to that family and what it means to the landscape there.
DA:
Sure. Conservation easements started about 1994 in Utah (there might have been a few
before that, but not many). What it is a landowner has a bunch of land, usually
contiguous (like maybe anywhere from 40 acres, to 10,000 acres). Then this individual
decides that instead of having this land available for development (which basically all our
private land will become), they decided to retain this land as an agricultural base. So they
contract with an agency or an organization, such as Utah Open Lands, or Nature
Conservancy, or Utah Forestry and Fire Control, or Division of Wildlife and they set up a
conservation easement so that the buyer of the easement buys the development rights of
the land. Once the development rights are bought, that land can no longer be developed.
But the landowner has the complete control as to what he wants to develop on it; so if he
wants to eventually put cabins on it (five cabins, two cabins, one cabin, no cabins), roads
– the landowner says what will happen to this land down in the future and puts those
restrictions on it. Then the conservation agency buys the rest of the development rights.
The landowner receives the money for those development rights (usually at about 75% of
the appraised value of those developments) and then it becomes a permanent piece of
agricultural or range land that preserves our environment and our agricultural base. For
many landowners they don’t want to see it developed. Some of them want to see it
developed a little bit for their kids and maybe their grandkids, but they want the
agricultural base to retain it’s integrity. That’s the reason that we started developing these
easements and now they’re becoming very popular. Evan Olsen did the very first one
here in Cache Valley, from an agricultural standpoint. There was one before that, but it
wasn’t for agriculture it was just for land preservation.
BA:
And with this family, they were obviously interested in protecting that landscape in
perpetuity –
DA:
Correct.
BA:
-- so the parents at that time, and then the children, were in agreement?
DA:
The parents had passed away before they began to talk about this easement. But the two
brothers and three sisters (I believe that’s correct), they decided they wanted to keep it in
a family agricultural ranch where they could raise livestock. It takes about 5,000 acres of
rangeland, with some irrigated cropland for hay and so forth, to be able to make a living
on the land; about 5,000 acres is what it takes. A family can make a living on that land,
and once it’s sold into an easement, it will retain that ability into perpetuity.
BA:
Now, have you worked on other conservation easements?
DA:
I haven’t worked directly on very many, but I’ve sure encouraged a lot of land owners to
do it. When I ran for the legislature (and that was 2002, I believe, or 2003), there was
almost nobody signed up to put their lands in conservation. Because they didn’t
understand it. They were in control of whatever they wanted and that was one of the
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�tenants of what I ran on. By the time I got done (even though I lost by a landslide), we
had 40 or 50 people that were interested in putting their lands into conservation
easements. And that has continued. We have more people applying for it than there is
money available.
BA:
Right.
DA:
To buy them.
BA:
Right, interesting. That, again, must be very exciting from a wildlife biologist
perspective, to see those parcels.
DA:
Oh yes, being protected.
BA:
Right.
DA:
You know when John White did his in the south end of the valley – that was the first
really big one that was being done. There’s one being done over in Bear Lake valley –
probably I shouldn’t give names.
BA:
That’s fine.
DA:
I think it’s 2,000 acres, and that’s been encouraged. Then there’s a bigger landowner over
there that owns about 7,000 acres that I just talked to a few weeks ago. He said, “Well,
I’m thinking pretty seriously about it now, but I want to see what this one does.” Then
there’s one over on the east side of Bear Lake that is in an extremely highly wildlife
productive area that the family has been working on for several years – I have written
letters for. That looks like that’s finally going to go. That’s extremely expensive because
it has shoreline associated with it.
BA:
Oh, sure.
DA:
So we’re getting a few. If we had more money from the state or other agencies, we’d
probably have a lot more of them.
BA:
But it could be a partnership between the state, and you also mentioned TNC (The Nature
Conservancy).
DA:
It’s really variable as to who holds the conservation easement, who buys it.
BA:
Okay.
DA:
Whoever has the money to buy it will buy, and then they hold it. And I’ve never seen one
reversed. The landowner can sell it, but the conservation easement stays on the deed
perpetually. I have never seen one reversed. It would take an enormous amount of money
to get one to reverse. I’ve seen them changed – where they’ve set up an easement on a
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�parcel of land and then decided that they wanted to expand it. So they re-write the
easement; eliminate the first one and re-write the second one.
BA:
So expand it to include more land?
DA:
To include more land.
BA:
So like an addendum to the original?
DA:
Correct. But that’s the only case I’ve seen it changed. And I’ve never seen one reversed.
BA:
Interesting. And then just one last question on conservation easements with Utah – where
are we in terms of the national perspective on easements? Do you know?
DA:
I guess I’m really not sure where we’re at on the national basis. We’re probably about as
far along as other places. I know back east they’re concerned about agricultural
production in certain areas has become so critical that they are now – cities and towns are
going out and buying conservation easements just to maintain agricultural base near
cities. Because the development has become so broad; so widespread. Where are we at in
Utah? I think we’re doing pretty good in this state. I’ve always thought – and what I
proposed was – for every acre of land that is developed, we should put an acre of land
into an easement for range or especially agricultural production. But that hasn’t happened
yet. You know, we’re losing about 500 acres in Cache Valley a year, and we’re almost
getting that much in conservation easements now. So we’re getting closer.
BA:
So you’d like to see a 1:1 ratio?
DA:
Yes, I would.
BA:
Thank you. That’s a little bit of a diversion, but –
DA:
It was.
BA:
Very interesting in terms of what’s happening in Cache Valley. Especially something that
was a connection for you early on and how that has translated into policy, and especially
long-term policy. So thank you for answering all of my questions on that.
DA:
[Laughing] You’re asking a lot more than I ever expected. I thought I would be out of
here in ten minutes!
[Stop and start recording]
[Tape 2 of 2: A]
BA:
This is Barbara Middleton, I am here with Dennis Austin. We are on Tape 2, side 1, and
this is our February 18, 2009 interview.
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�What I’d like to move into now is a look at policies that have impacted some of the areas
of Dennis’ work. One of the things I’ve asked him to explain is a little bit about state’s
authority. And then also the idea of what would be some of the policies that would be
very helpful in terms of wildlife in Logan Canyon. But let’s start with state’s authority.
DA:
Well, this is a complicated issue because the way that the United States is set up, the rules
and regulations of land and wildlife management may not have been the best way.
Because the states were given the authority to manage the wildlife, and that’s their
perusal; but the land management agencies manage the land. Sometimes, the two are not
exactly compatible because of the people use factor. From a wildlife perspective, if you
manage land particularly for wildlife you generally eliminate people use.
A good example of this is on our wildlife management areas; in about 1996 I initiated a
program where these wildlife management areas were on big game winter range (such as
the Millville face, such as the Richmond wildlife management area, and then the one over
in Rich county). We began to exclude people use totally from December 1 through April
31 to maximize the use and availability of those lands for wildlife, because that’s what
they were purchased for. If you could eliminate all people use (at least at critical times)
on the Forest Service and the BLM, you would maximize your opportunity for wildlife.
But you can’t do that because you’ve got the people factor in there and you have to
provide for recreation. So it becomes a balancing act for the Forest Service to try to
manage their lands so that they are providing for people but also for wildlife resources.
One of the examples that we dealt with in terms of developing land planning and policy
was with the Forest Service about eight or nine years ago when they were in one of their
planning regimes. The snowmobilers in the winter wanted to open up the Temple Fork
and Spawn Creek area – totally open up to snowmobiling. Well, from our aerial surveys
of (we’ll talk about elk, but also moose to a lesser degree) we found that that’s where a
very large herd of elk stayed all winter. They stayed in that Temple Fork and we knew
that they would be moved out by snowmobile use. I’d been going up there on my skis in
the Spawn Creek area since at least the mid-1970s. I skied up there every year and the elk
would use the creek as a travel lane when the snow got deep. They would sit up there in
those curl-leaf mahogany stands. I think we convinced the Forest Service to leave at least
part of that area excluded from snowmobile use, to maintain some wildlife habitat that we
knew was heavily critical to our elk up in that area. So, that was one example where we
came together and I felt like the agencies worked together pretty good.
BA:
Are there any other examples in Logan Canyon that you can think of?
DA:
That’s the only one that really came to fruition that really seemed to work for everyone. I
think that the snowmobiling group kind of got on it and said, “Yeah, we can back off a
little bit here.” Now the use has increased so much from the skiers and the snowshoers,
I’m not sure that it’s that effective anymore. Because when I used to go up there, I’d go
up there on my skis and I did my curl-leaf mountain mahogany study up Spawn Creek
and it went for a full year. I’d go up and collect samples of the trees for nutritional
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�analysis on a bi-weekly basis. I’d go up there and ski up one day and then I’d come back
two weeks later and I would ski over my same tracks. There was nobody else up there –
nobody! There were no snowmobiles – they were almost non-existent – and no other
skiers because I was the only one. I would do that all winter and once in a while I’d cut
another ski track, but it was really unusual. Usually I’d ski up there all winter and I would
be the only track up there!
[Laughing]
BA:
Wow!
DA:
But it was kind of fun.
BA:
You’re still going up there now?
DA:
I still do.
BA:
So the changes you’re seeing are what?
DA:
Vegetatively, not much. You know, the Forest Service has done an excellent job in
putting the new road up there and rehabilitating the old road along the stream.
Vegetatively we haven’t seen many changes. In terms of animal use, there’s a little bit. I
think the elk are pretty much moved out of there now for a large part of the winter, where
they used to stay up there the whole winter. I know because I used to see them. The
moose are still up there in the curl leaf mahogany forest type, and their numbers are
probably comparable to what they were before. The birds are still there. The forest in the
winter time situation hasn’t changed probably hardly at all. Still a few bobcats; still cut a
cougar track once in a while. A few years ago I cut a wolf track for the first time. I know
it was a wolf because I followed it for a long way, so we know they’re coming in too. But
the wolf is probably the newcomer, coming back of course. Most of the vegetation really
hasn’t changed. The fishery hasn’t changed very much; it does have heavier pressure, but
most guys can’t catch fish anyway!
BA:
Well, now there were severe road changes up there, or significant road changes.
DA:
Oh yes.
BA:
There was that high road that was put up and around.
DA:
Yes, and that was an excellent move. Except the only bad thing about it is that it changed
my breeding bird survey route.
BA:
Oh! [Laughing]
DA:
I had to realign my stops on my BBS routes, but other than that it was great. And I can
handle that.
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�BA:
I never saw the area before the road went in because I haven’t been here that long, but I’d
seen previous pictures and it looked like it was a great addition to –
DA:
They did a great job on that. That was a fantastic, very excellent job. And it did a lot of
good; the planning has done a very good job. So, kudos to the Forest Service on that one.
BA:
That’s great. You know, it’s interesting to talk about policy because one of the things that
I think about is policies that are directly the front door of the agency, like NEPA, you
know in terms of the public involvement process and a direct impact on the agency. But
then there are also policies that are very external to resource management that begin to
affect your work or people’s access, or quantity of use, or change of use. When I think of
policies like within the industry of snowmobiling or cross-country skiing and technical –
maybe they’re not policy changes, they’re technical changes. But they begin to affect
policy on the landscape as far as what – like the Yellowstone condition. If the
manufacturers make changes in snowmobiles then will Yellowstone take a different look
at their snowmobile policy? Because of an air quality or noise reduction, or whatever.
So can you think of policies that would be external that have maybe had some impacts on
your work? Or some of your research? Or just some of the changes you may have seen.
[Stop and start recording]
DA:
Okay, the BLM for instance, they graze most of the ranges all summer long on season
long grazing on sage grouse ranges and sage grouse is kind of a sensitive species. One of
the areas over there [Rich County] had a good lek on it, it was called the Otter Creek Lek.
We researched that over a couple of years to find out where those birds were going. Sure
enough they were all on BLM grounds, and it was being grazed on a season long basis. I
recommended to the Bureau of Land Management to build one fence line in addition to
the ones they had there because most of the birds were nesting in this one area. Because
of the cattle grazing in there, their nesting success was not very good. There was more
open ground, there was more predator potential (especially from eagles and raptors and
that sort of thing). So our reproductive rate was pretty shallow. I asked them if they could
just fence that off during the months of June through mid-July until the chicks were big
enough to be able to kind of survive on their own a little bit. That would have increased
our reproductive capacity. Then they could go and still graze it at the same level and not
change their animal months of livestock use in there. Well, they weren’t able to do it. If
they would have been able to change that policy I am still convinced that it would help
that sage grouse population in that area immensely.
BA:
Okay.
DA:
That’s an example maybe of a policy that could be changed without affecting the land
owner or the grazer, but would have positive effects on wildlife.
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�BA:
That’s great, no that’s a great example. Anything else that you can think of? Well I’m
sure in your time period of 30 years there were so many policies that you have run across
your desk.
DA:
Out in the deserts on the summer ranges, the cattle stay there year long. The question that
we started out with there was – and it applies to summer ranges on the Cache and other
places too – the question is, “Can livestock grazing on summer range affect big game?”
The general answer is, no, they don’t. Except when the grazing becomes so significant
that they begin to remove the browse complement of the vegetation on the summer
ranges. When the grazing gets to that point, then they’re affecting mule deer because
they’re pushing them to alternative areas, and they are affected. But until you get to that
extreme type of grazing, you are not affecting them on summer range. So what we said to
the Forest Service on that, and the BLM, was that, you know it’s fine to graze these
livestock to that point, but once they reach that point of extreme overgrazing on these
summer ranges then you need to pull them off. Because that’s when the deer put on their
fat for the wintertime, so they need the berries [and fall vegetation].
BA:
Okay.
DA:
But until they reach that point, you’re okay. So if you end your livestock grazing at the
first [of] September for at least half the area then you’re probably really well off, because
the deer will find those areas that aren’t being grazed. But there is a competition
potential, say from the last week in August through most of the month of September.
That’s the only time that it’s there.
BA:
So it’s a timing – you could remove them during that –
DA:
It is.
BA:
Remove the cow during that time. Is it also a lack of other vegetation available that
would push them into the browse?
DA:
Yes, it is. They’ve eaten everything else up.
BA:
Okay.
DA:
Now they’re all of a sudden eating the stuff they don’t particularly care to eat, but they’re
hungry so they’re eating it. Now wildlife do not need all the area. You’ve got a 5,000
acre range, you could put 2,500 or 2,000 acres for the wildlife and they migrate in there.
And they do. And then they would have that for them. That’s kind of a rest-rotation
grazing system that works. It really works for wildlife.
BA:
Great. I’m going to do a little change here with a question – you have two books that are
sitting here that I’d like to find out a little bit more about.
DA:
I’m not sure I want to talk about them.
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�BA:
Okay! [Laughing]
DA:
Because they’re not published.
BA:
Well then let me go back to in terms of some of your influences in your interest in
wildlife management and especially in the big game, but also in just conservation in
natural resources in general. Do you have any significant books that you can remember
that were fairly pivotal for you? And in the same light, when I think of – you’ve
mentioned some people – but were there significant people along the way? Your dad took
you fishing and that was an interesting connection for you, especially with that
conservation easement part. But books or people?
DA:
Well, I’ve said for years – this gives me a chance to vent one of my frustrations that I
believe that USU (and every other college of natural resources anywhere) is remiss in not
offering a course in classic readings in natural resources. We do not do that here. I don’t
think we’ve ever done it here, and it really should be done.
BA:
And what would you include?
DA:
Well first I would go out and survey as many professors and as many universities as I
could and just ask them, “What would you want your students to read as far as the
background of natural resources?” So you would want to read Leopold, you would want
to read The Monkey Wrench Gang group, Desert Solitaire, you’d want to read Stegner;
you’d want to read probably some stuff I tell you Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, a number
of authors, certainly Silent Spring (Rachel Carson). Maybe a dozen or so books that you
would want to have in that reading group. I think my reading of all of them has been
effective. I think it really kind of set me in motion as to what really natural resources
finally is about. For example, as I read Stegner’s stuff, especially his book Beyond the
Hundredth Meridian, he talked about how in the early days the surveyors and the early
explorers, they knew the west was dry and they tried to get congress to build state lines
along watershed boundaries, rather than the straight lines that we have. But they couldn’t
quite get the votes in congress because congress wanted to make it real easy rather than
along watershed boundaries. It was close, they almost got it. It was a shame that they
didn’t, and it’s a shame that we don’t go back and redo the state boundaries.
BA:
Um-hmm.
DA:
But those are some of the books that I thought were pretty influential. I think that Dr.
Colthrap was probably very influential to me in my first few years at USU.
BA:
And that was the watershed person?
DA:
Yes. Dr. Hanks over in Agriculture who was my thesis director for my Master’s degree
(which was in soils) [laughs] was very influential. Fred Gifford who was my Master’s
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�thesis committee chair was also – I had a really unusual schooling! And then Phil Urness
and Dr. Smith when I got into my professional work.
BA:
Art Smith. And what was the first name?
DA:
Arthur.
BA:
But you’d mentioned –
DA:
Oh, Phillip Urness.
BA:
Phillip Urness, okay.
DA:
U-R-N-E-S-S.
BA:
Thank you.
DA:
We did a lot of stuff together. I think I’ve got 53 technical publications, I think most of
them are done with Phil.
BA:
So the first three people are really your education?
DA:
Yes.
BA:
Influences in your education.
DA:
Right.
BA:
And then Art Smith was also here.
DA:
He was my first boss.
BA:
That sounds very much like a very close colleague in terms of Urness and publications.
DA:
Yes, we were. He was my boss but we worked really good together for years.
BA:
Okay, so those are two DWR employees?
DA:
Well, no they were university.
BA:
They were USU?
DA:
Yes, and they were very influential.
BA:
Is there something you can describe about that influence that was important to you that
you can think of?
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�DA:
Well it was really good because a lot of times university professors will take publication
credits – first authorship – for their students on their publications. In the early days when
I first started, we sat down and we decided that we weren’t going to it that way. We
decided that whoever did most of the work was first author. Everything that I did in terms
of fieldwork I was first author on, with one exception. That one exception was when it
was kind of on the border and I took second author on that. That was a tremendous
incentive to do it right! I think I said I have 53 publications, I have one rejection; one
paper I was never able to publish. So that’s a pretty good percentage.
BA:
Yeah, no kidding! Going back to the books, when you look at all of those books, those
are dated in time, but not dated in importance.
DA:
Correct.
BA:
Are there some current titles that you would look at that you think of emerging or have
emerged as being important? Because my guess is that you are a big reader.
DA:
I read a fair amount. I haven’t read any of the newer stuff that I was as impressed with,
very honestly.
BA:
Okay.
DA:
You know, I go back and I’ll read Leopold or Muir and I’ll get a lot out of it. To me, and
maybe I’m wrong, but to me the older authors (including Audubon and these guys) they
were on the field, in the land and looking at the land from an inside point of view. The
authors that I’m reading today are extremely good writers and they have more knowledge
available to them, but it’s like their looking at the system rather than within the system.
That’s kind of my view. Even though a lot of it is emotional and there’s lots of great
experiences, I just feel like there’s a different point of reference from what I’ve read over
the last several years.
BA:
Well and based on some of the other things you’ve said, that seems to fit very closely
with the idea of how NR has moved away from being as field based as it could. Because
that experiential approach of field camp, classes in the field, and the work in the field;
then when you become a professional, spending much more time –
DA:
Right. I just feel like that is the real difference. If you can show me a person that spends
80 or 90% of their time in the field and is still able to write, that’s the kind of stuff that I
think you can really relate to. But I shouldn’t say anything because these authors are
doing very well.
BA:
Oh yeah.
DA:
Some of them are doing very well.
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�BA:
But as you’re saying, there’s a different orientation with that.
DA:
Um-hmm.
BA:
And we see that with other aspects: observation, experience, and that common
knowledge.
DA:
Even some of the older writers you can look at some of the stuff they do, and you’re
going, “he was there, but he’s looking at it rather than being in it.” There are some of the
other writers that I don’t care for that express their views in that kind of a setting.
BA:
Hmm. Interesting. Well thank you. This has been fascinating. I have a feeling we have
some unanswered questions here. I would like to maybe pursue it at a later date. What
we’re going to do though, right now, is ask Dennis if there are any final comments that he
would like to make.
[Stop and start recording]
BA:
We’re going to pick up with Dennis again.
DA:
I’m going to talk about a few of the experiences and situations that have occurred in
Logan Canyon over the years.
The first one I’ll talk about is pine marten because in the early days we had pine marten
on the Cache. They apparently died out around the 1930s because that’s the last time they
were seen. And then the Forest Service (about 1995) transplanted about 20-30 pine
marten from Island Park up in Idaho, to the Cache National Forest up in the Franklin and
Gibson Basin areas. Those marten have taken and they are continuing to maintain their
population up there to this time. Now I haven’t seen any in the last two years, but I used
to go on my cross-country skis way back up from Beaver Creek all the way to Gibson
Basin. Once you get to the Idaho line, everybody stops, but if you go further, you’ll run
into habitat that is inhabited by marten. They’re still there and that’s an unusual species
that is pretty neat to have around.
BA:
Could you describe the habitat that they really thrive in?
DA:
Mostly dense conifer; their major prey species are voles. But they’ll also eat red squirrels,
which I’ve seen them chase. That’s fun to see if you’ve ever seen a pine marten chase a
red squirrel, it’s really fun. [Laughing]
BA:
How do they do it?
DA:
Just as fast as they can go! Up trees, down trees, across the ground, over piles of wood.
Annie and I saw that, a really interesting chase up in Yellowstone one year, coming out
of Union Falls. But that was fun. So that’s the pine marten.
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�The wolverine is really a little more interesting because I’ve got a little more observation
there. The question that came up years ago is, “Do we ever get wolverine on the Cache?”
Wolverine, lynx, and the pine marten. And we talked about pine marten. In ten years we
had one lynx that came into the Cache Valley mountains. The tracks were cut by me, and
then two weeks later by a Forest Service employee. That’s the only verifiable lynx that I
know of.
But the wolverine. I began to ask sportsmen and Forest Service employees – anybody I
could that was in the woods a lot – “have you seen a wolverine?” Over a ten year period I
put together a map. And every time I’d get an observation that I felt like was probably a
wolverine (like 95% -- if it was less 95% probability I’d throw it out). So everything I got
is highly probable; then I would put a dot on the map. After ten years, I had like 20 dots
and they are all centered in the same area. Like there was none over in Blacksmith Fork,
there was none on the Wellsvilles, there was one over toward Monte Cristo: they’re all
centered in the top of Logan Canyon, basically to the north of Logan Canyon near the
top.
BA:
A forest type and elevation?
DA:
Yep, forest type; often in rocks, rocky terrain, but not necessarily. High Creek Lake has
several reports up there. But they’re all centered in that Gibson area, Gibson Basin to
High Creek Lake area. And we put together a little piece that I published in the Herald
Journal on that. [In 1995] I saw a wolverine. [Before that the only one that I had scene
was] when I was like 17 down in Salt Lake. [In 1995] I was skiing way back into Gibson
Basin and had gotten almost back to the basin itself, but not quite. There’s a transitional
zone there where the canyon gets steep and there’s some really warm micro-habitat in
there. I cut through wolverine tracks – and it was an adult and a juvenile (because of the
size of the two tracks).
BA:
What size are we looking at with these?
DA:
Oh, they’re about four inches in diameter – they’re between a cougar and a bobcat,
generally, and they’re a furrier track and a little more round. They’re not easy to
distinguish, but you can. I followed those two wolverine for a while and that was kind of
a unique observation. So we do have wolverine on the Cache forest. They do get here
once in a while; my guess is we have two to four permanent wolverines that range from
Logan Canyon road, north clear to Soda Springs – in that entire range.
BA:
And they range in that area?
DA:
Yes.
BA:
That’s how large they range?
DA:
Wide, wide ranging critters.
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�BA:
Holy cow!
DA:
That’s why we just don’t see them very often.
BA:
Right.
DA:
And since I wrote that article, I’ve had two more additional people call me about two
sightings that I accepted were wolverines. On this particular study or analysis, I was
probably rejecting about two thirds, to three quarters of the observations that people were
giving me because they just weren’t good enough.
BA:
Do people document them with pictures for you?
DA:
No, no one had a picture. It was all either visual sighting – “I got a really good look at
him, but I didn’t get a picture.”
BA:
Right.
DA:
In a couple of cases I accepted tracks, but they had to be good biologists, you know. They
had to be able to say, you know, you could see the fifth claw and that sort of thing.
BA:
Interesting. Go back to the lynx for a minute. When you talk about they’re just so rare –
what’s your reason for it?
DA:
And lynx are tied into snowshoe hare and the snowshoe hare population – that’s part of
the reason I started snowshoe hare transects, is to find out what is going on with our
population. Because the idea is that as you go further south from boreal forest type, that
your population cycles: snowshoe hare populating go extremely high and extremely low.
We didn’t know what it was doing here. That’s the only lynx that I have ever encountered
one way or another. I don’t think they’re here.
But the cougar is the really interesting. There’s a lot to be said on the cougar on the
Cache District in Logan Canyon. The stories are innumerable.
BA:
Well tell us a little bit about your experiences with them.
DA:
Well my first experience with a cougar was when I was 16 or 17 (I can’t remember
which) and I had a date and she forgot. So I went up the canyon and with a weak-beamed
flashlight, I was hiking back in one of the canyons at night and I heard this scream. And it
scared the daylights out of me. My teenage invincibility was gone, and I didn’t know
what it was. It was a cougar. And since then we have had a lot of cougar experiences as a
family.
[Stop and start recording]
[Tape 2 of 2: B]
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�BA:
Tape 2, side 2.
DA:
We [family] were camped outside Yellowstone Park and I had the kids with me and they
were all pretty young. I thought everybody was asleep and I heard this cougar screaming
– it was way out. We had the stream running by us, there was a little bit of water noise,
and this cougar got closer, and closer, and closer. It screamed about every three or four
minutes. If you’ve ever heard them scream (and very few people have) it sounds like a
woman in mortal terror. That’s the best way to describe it. But the cougar got pretty
close, and I said to the family (because I thought everybody was asleep), I said, “Is
anybody awake?” Instantly Annie and every one of the kids sat up in their sleeping bags
– they’d all been hearing it thinking everybody else was asleep! [Laughing] We pulled
the kids out of their sleeping bags, threw them into the van (even though I didn’t think
there was much danger), but I mean this cougar was screaming at the top of his lungs,
and it was right by us. I got everybody into the van and turned my flashlight on and there
– ten feet from the van was this cougar. You could see his eyes in that beam. There
wasn’t much of a reflection, but you could see him right there. My kids can still
remember it. [Laughing]
BA:
Holy cow! So why was he so gregarious with coming in?
DA:
Well, that’s the time when they’re breeding.
BA:
Okay.
DA:
He was calling, screaming for a mate – she or he, I don’t know which. What a great
experience!
When I took over the Cache position, we had a lot of cougar and not very many deer. The
first year – they’d had one or two permits on the Cache Forest for years in terms of
cougar harvest. The first year I just went into the RAC meeting not knowing very much
and I asked for 30 permits.
BA:
Tell us what RAC is?
DA:
Regional Advisory Council for the Division of Wildlife Resources, which makes their
recommendation to the board which sets policy.
BA:
Okay, and they’re made up of local citizens?
DA:
They’re made up of seven people – well the RACs are local people generally, that have
an interest.
Anyway, I went into that meeting and I ended up getting I think two permits that first
year. I didn’t like that because I knew there were cougars all over the place. So the next
year for the recommendation process, I prepared a two or three page summary of what
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�was going on and took it first to a committee meeting of DWR biologists. At that time we
had a biologist who was the predator manager– I don’t know what his title was, but he
did cougars. We sat in this meeting and I said, “I want 30 permits because I’ve got 120
cougars on the Cache.” (Because that was my estimate.) He looked at me and he said,
“Dennis, you don’t even have 30 cougars on the Cache, let alone 120!” (Actually I was
asking for 40 permits, that’s right, I asked for 40.)
He said, “You don’t even have 40 permits on the whole Cache!” And I called him by
name and I said, “You give me 40 permits and three good weekends of snow and I’ll
show you 40 dead cougars.” I got 35 permits, we had three weekends of snow, we killed
37 cougars.
BA:
Wow.
DA:
We went over our limit because some of the cougar hunters had gone out that last day
when I had 34 and we ended up killing three the last day. [Laughing] So we got on top of
the cougar population. It took us a few years to do it, but we got on top of it.
BA:
And then the deer population?
DA:
The deer population responded a little bit. Hard to say. You know, there are so many
other factors involved. But we did get on top of the cougars. I had cougars coming out of
my ears! I had people calling me. Dry Canyon in Providence in Canyon – we had a
cougar that would come down in this lady’s backyard. I would go over there (of course I
could never find it when I was there). Come hunting season I would send a cougar hunter
right there. He went up that mountain, found a cougar and got it. I had a cougar just
above Mantua, Malibu Campground – in that little housing place (I can’t think of the
name of it off hand) and this cougar would come down and sit on the porch. It started
growling at people – and we sent a hunter after that cougar. And we killed that cougar.
Then we had the cougars in (oh, what’s the name of that canyon? Just above the Forest
Service house in the canyon there.)
BA:
I know where you mean.
DA:
I can’t think of the name off hand. But we had sheep being killed up there by cougars in
the summer. So we got ADC to go in there (Animal Damage Control), federal people, to
go in there and kill these cougars. They didn’t kill one cougar – they killed five cougars
in that one little drainage! You know the old concept was that cougars kill each other
(and they do) and they’re very territorial and they still are because under the long-term
environmentals where they developed over the last 10,000 years they had to be because
the deer resource was very sparse. Since man came along we began livestock grazing,
controlling predators; all of a sudden cougars have got all kinds of stuff to eat – they
don’t have to worry about it as much. So my theory was they didn’t have to kill each
other to maintain their territory, so they were all enjoying feasts. So that’s one of the
reasons that I think cougar populations are much harder to control now is because they
have – over the last century – adapted to a higher prey base than they ever had before.
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�BA:
How do you know – when you look at sheep when someone called you out and they said,
“we think it’s cougar” – how could you tell that it was not something else that had
attacked that animal?
DA:
By the bite marks.
BA:
And what would they be?
DA:
They would be the bite marks – I am not an expert at that by any means. The ADC guys
(the Animal Damage Control guys) are really experts. They can just skin it back, pull the
skin back, and then they just look at the bite marks on the neck. That will distinguish a
cougar practically every time.
BA:
Now did you ever work with trappers in your time? You mentioned ADC.
DA:
Not very much. A few trappers. The most interesting story was I had a trapper, I won’t
tell you his name, and he trapped bobcat (because you can’t trap cougar). He was
trapping bobcat and he was very successful at it for years (probably still doing it); a very
good man, a very good trapper. I get this call one night and he says, “Dennis, I got a
cougar in one of my bobcat traps.” It was night so I said, “Let’s go up and get it in the
morning.” So we went up in the morning and hiked up the mountain where his trap was.
Sure enough, there was a cougar in his bobcat trap. He said to me, “How are we going to
release this?” Because he couldn’t do that. And I said, “There is no way in this world that
either one of us is going to go try and release this cougar.” I had a gun and we just shot it.
We killed the cougar. Then the interesting thing was we checked his next trap (which was
just around the bend) and it also had a cougar in it! So we got two cougars in two bobcat
traps right there. That was an interesting experience!
BA:
I can’t imagine even trying to release.
DA:
Yes, but they’re there. And we don’t know whether trappers, when they get cougars,
would kill them or not. We just don’t know. It’s impossible to check them all. But it
probably happens. We had a river otter taken one year in Logan Canyon. It was captured
and killed by a trapper who was trapping beaver up there. He brought us this river otter; I
think it is still frozen in one of our freezers some place! But that was the only river otter
that I know of that’s been in Logan Canyon, except that about two weeks before we got
the carcass, I had a report of a river otter in Logan Canyon that was seen sliding down (as
they typically do) the snow banks into the river.
BA:
Oh my!
DA:
That report was by my son. One of my sons had seen it and I said, “Oh no, you must have
seen something wrong.” Two weeks later, we get a river otter that had been trapped in the
same area. Fascinating.
BA:
Hmm.
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�DA:
The cougar situation is being controlled a lot better now and I think they’ve done a pretty
good job. My best experience – and I’ve seen seven cougars in the wild over my career
which is a lot. There is hardly anybody that can say that they’ve seen that many. The one
that was the most unique was when I was classifying deer (it was in the fall) and I was
coming up out of Garden City. I was about three miles up Garden City road – I was
classifying deer – it was in the evening, late evening, and I see seven deer off to the side
of the road. Well, the highway has a little turnoff there at the corner, so I pulled over to
that little gravel area and got out and looked to classify those deer. There were four does
and three fawns, I can still remember. I looked at them and the strange thing was they
weren’t looking at me. They were looking a little off into the bushes. And I go, “what is
going on?” Then all of a sudden – just simultaneously – they just ran! They were just
gone, strutting away. I am looking around, and there (well I measured the distance, I
can’t remember what it was), but it was like 30 feet or less was this cougar.
BA:
Laying low?
DA:
He’d been sitting there laying low in the bushes watching those deer, sneaking up on
them. He was not happy with me; he stood up and just kind of cowered through the
sagebrush. I watched him, [it was] quite an experience.
BA:
Oh! That would be.
DA:
That was fun.
BA:
I bet you had dozens and hundreds of those kinds of experiences with different kinds of
wildlife in your career.
DA:
I have.
BA:
You know, especially with your comment about being so oriented to the field and then
the family time that you’ve spent out.
DA:
Yes I did. There was a lot of wonderful experiences and things that, you know, you just
can’t replace. You can’t replace them.
BA:
Well, thank you very much. This has been just thoroughly enjoyable.
DA:
For me too.
BA:
It’s really good talking to you. I appreciate it.
[Stop recording]
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Dennis D. Austin interview, 18 February 2009, and transcription
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Dennis Austin discusses his career in the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and all the time in the field he spent and his role and opinions on various policies involved he also talks about his role in influencing and teaching land owners about conservation easements.
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Austin, Dennis D.
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Middleton, Barbara
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Austin, Dennis D.--Interviews
Biologists--Utah--Interviews
Austin, Dennis D.--Career in Wildlife Research
Utah. Division of Wildlife Resources--Officials and employees
Utah State University--Research
Range management--Research
Research and development projects--Utah
Wildlife management--Research--Utah
Wildlife research--Utah--Logan Canyon
Deer--Research--Utah
Deer--Feeding and feeds--Utah--Cache County
Big game animals--Wintering--Research--Utah
Browse (Animal food)--Research--Utah
Conservation easements--Utah
Habitat (Ecology)--Utah--Logan Canyon
Habitat conservation--Utah--Logan Canyon
Range management--Utah--Logan Canyon
Natural resources--Study and teaching
Puma--Control--Utah
Wildlife resources--Subsistence vs. recreational use--Utah--Logan Canyon
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Logan Canyon (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
Millville (Utah)
North Logan (Utah)
United States
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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1990-1999
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2000-2009
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eng
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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http://highway89.org/files/original/12164225cbb35b3dad32e60ee5ab0ab5.mp3
e4517100ed654e6ecd041d681f5c4196
http://highway89.org/files/original/fbfa9b76b77815e0452c9d5daa1d795b.pdf
2957a2b316558299493f920fcdf493b9
PDF Text
Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Fred Wagner
Place of Interview: Utah State University
Date of Interview: April 15, 2008
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Barbara Middleton
Barbara Middleton
Recording Equipment:
Radio Shack Cassette Tape Recorder, CTR-122
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Susan Gross
Fred Wagner; Randy Williams (July 2011)
Brief Description of Contents: The interview contains information on Fred Wagner’s
childhood and interest in the outdoors. He discusses his goal to be a rancher and his experience
working as a cowboy where he realized his interest in plants and animals. He then discusses his
education at Southern Methodist University and later at the University of Wisconsin (where Aldo
Leopold was a professor). He discusses his views on the interface of science and policy, and his
experience with such throughout his career doing scientific research, including blacktail
jackrabbits and coyotes in the Curlew Valley; his work with the Desert Biome Program; with
Fred Knowlton, work on predator studies; work with Global Change Research Program,
coordinating the Rocky Mountain/Great Basin Regional Assessment.
Reference:
BM = Barbara Middleton (Interviewer; Interpretive Specialist, Environment &
Society Dept., USU College of Natural Resources)
FW = Fred Wagner
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcript. All additions to transcript are noted with
brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 1: A]
BM:
We are here on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 and we’re in Fred Wagner’s office, here on the
campus of Utah State in the Biology and Natural Resources building. And it is snowing
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�outside. We are getting ready to interview Fred on the first interview, and looking at
some background information.
Fred, would you introduce yourself: your full name and when and where you were born?
FW:
I am Frederick Hamilton Wagner. I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas on September 26,
1926.
BM:
Okay. How about giving us a little bit of background on how you developed your interest
in the out of doors.
FW:
Okay. It probably started with my father who enjoyed hunting and fishing and camping.
He took me out with him and when I was old enough to hunt then I began doing that as
well. So it started there. It also must have started in my earliest years when we lived in
San Antonio, Texas and had a vacant lot next door where I enjoyed recreating: climbing
mesquite trees and in general enjoying the out of doors.
By the sixth grade I had previously been interested in studying medicine (I don’t know
why), but had been reading some medical books but gradually changed more generally
into biology. In the sixth grade one of my teachers persuaded me to participate in
competitive tests – statewide in the state of Kansas – in biology, which I did.
Now I’m going to jump around a lot geographically. My father was a government
engineer, and hence we moved on average of every year. So we lived in different places.
For example, one year we lived in Corpus Christi, Texas had a house right on the beach
and I essentially lived on the beach swimming, beach combing and fishing. We also lived
in Pecos, Texas, out in the far west where I became enamored of the ranchers out there;
and the big tall guys marching up and down the sidewalks with big hats and cowboy
boots.
So when I graduated from high school I had decided that what I wanted to do was be a
rancher in west Texas. And although I was a city boy up to that point, really had not
worked at it, my parents told me that if I would get out and learn the working end they
would save their pennies and perhaps we’d go into the ranching business. So I got a job
immediately after high school working on a ranch in far west Texas. I worked at that for
about a year living outdoors all day every day, sitting on a horse virtually every day; but
in fact, sort of relating more to the wild plants and animals that I saw as we worked
around in the outdoors, than to pushing around the livestock that I was required to do.
After I had worked a year on the ranch I thought that I was going to be drafted into the
army. I was taken in very briefly, but was released because of a knee injury I had
sustained with a horse falling with me during my ranching time. My folks had been living
in Las Vegas, Nevada at that point, also in the west of course, so when I was released I
went back to Las Vegas and got a job working on the Desert Game Range – the largest of
the Federal Wildlife Refuges in the lower 48. I had gotten to know the refuge biologist
briefly as I had visited my parents between leaving the ranch work and before responding
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�to the draft. So I worked on the refuge for the better part of a year; was outdoors all the
time; assisted the refuge biologist in his research on desert bighorn sheep and continued
that until the war ended in the latter part of 1945.
And in the fall of ’45 I left the refuge and moved to Dallas, Texas where my folks were
then living; and started college at SMU [Southern Methodist University]. I’d really
wanted to go to the University of Texas but it was too late, and there was a mass of
returnees from the armed forces. So I just lived with my folks for the first year and started
at SMU majoring in biology where by that point I’d learned that it was possible to work
for a living in the field of wildlife. I’d learned that while working on the refuge.
So I majored in biology. I had a botany professor who’d just joined the faculty from the
University of Wisconsin where he’d taken courses from Aldo Leopold. His name was
Shinners and he encouraged me to continue for graduate work; wrote Leopold and asked
if they would be willing to look me over as a possible graduate student. And
unbeknownst to me Shinners sent money up to Leopold’s department for them to hire me
on their summer research projects and pay me a salary. I guess I did reasonably well in
the work so they accepted me as a graduate student. And in the fall of 1949, after
graduating from SMU, I went to Wisconsin and began my graduate work there.
Now Wisconsin at that point – the University Wildlife Department was very small. In
fact, at its outset there was only one faculty member – Aldo Leopold. So what Leopold
required of his PhD students was that they fulfill the major in another department on the
Wisconsin campus. So I had a dual PhD, one in Wildlife – in that department – and one
in the Zoology Department of Wisconsin where I took a heavy load zoology classes. And
then I had to minor so I minored in the Botany Department, in Plant Ecology. So that was
my academic background. Do you want to continue on this?
Okay so, a fellow graduate student at Wisconsin was Allen Stokes, who was several years
ahead of me. We became friends and socialized. And when Allen finished his degree at
Wisconsin he was looking for a position and one was advertised in the Wildlife
Department at Utah State University. So I urged Allen who was a Pennsylvanian who’d
never been west of the Mississippi, I assured him he’d like the West and urged him to
apply for that position, which he did. And he was hired on the spot when he interviewed.
Well Allen completed his first six years on the faculty and then told his department head
that he wanted a sabbatical. His department head said, “You can have a sabbatical, but
you have to get your own replacement.” So Allen called me at Wisconsin, I still hadn’t
finished my graduate work. And at that point in time I was working as a research
biologist for the state of Wisconsin. So I asked if I could take a leave of absence, which I
did, and they gave me a year’s leave. So I came out to Utah and taught Stokes’ courses
during that year. Then when Stokes came back from his sabbatical I went back to
Wisconsin, finished my degree, and at that point another position opened at Utah State,
and I applied for it and was hired in response to my application.
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�So a series of stages in my life have had me in the out of doors, had me interested in
plants and animals, interested in biology, and eventually that shaped my career into
wildlife. And I have now spent my entire professional career at Utah State University.
BM:
Could you just explain a little bit how the college was organized at that time, since
departments have changed?
FW:
When I started at Utah State, which was in the fall of 1961, there were three departments
in the College of Forest, Range, and Wildlife Management; Department of Wildlife,
Department of Range Management, and Department of Forestry. And so my appointment
was in the Wildlife Department.
BM:
And at that time, what was the focus of the Wildlife Department?
FW:
Well, natural resources were simpler in those days and so we thought about managing
wildlife to produce wildlife species for hunters and fisheries for fisherpersons. The Range
Department essentially was oriented to managing rangelands for livestock. And the
Forestry Department here at Utah State had a bit of an image problem, in that it thought it
should teach traditional foresters. So it had a faculty made up of dendrologists, forest
managers, etc., teaching a traditional program in forestry. But at that time, and continues
to the present, Utah was not a significant timber producing state (like say Oregon and
Washington or even California; or today Montana, Idaho).
BM:
So in your early years where was some of your research focused when you first arrived
here at Utah State?
FW:
Well, one of the things that I’d been interested in both while working for the state of
Wisconsin and as contributing to my dissertation was studying animal populations. And
the man who ended up as my major professor in the Wildlife Department was Joseph
Hickey, who was very interested in animal populations. So I directed my research in
Wisconsin to pheasant populations in that state, and became interested in population
ecology. When I moved to Logan, I learned very soon that in the west deserts of the state
there were large populations of blacktail jackrabbits that cycled in what turned out to be
approximately a ten year cycle. And I’d been very interested in cyclic behavior in
studying animal populations in Wisconsin. So my first research was directed toward
studying the population dynamics of blacktail jackrabbits in the west deserts of Utah.
Soon after that, it seemed to me likely that the major predator on blacktail jackrabbits was
coyotes. So my next research, to go along with the jackrabbit work, was to study
jackrabbit populations in the same area that I was studying coyotes. And it turned out that
jackrabbits and coyotes were linked in what I learned was approximately a 10-11 year
cycle; the jackrabbits rising to high density, coyotes increasing along with them.
Eventually increasing to the point where they could suppress the jackrabbits, so driving
the jackrabbit populations down. And then having driven their food supply down, the
coyotes declined as well, which in turn released the jackrabbits, etc. So they cycled up
and down together, but with about a two year lag in the coyotes.
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�BM:
In that area in the west desert, could you give us some towns that we could look at on the
map?
FW:
My research was concentrated in an area called Curlew Valley which is in the northwest
part of the state and also extends into Idaho. The town on the east side of Curlew Valley
is Snowville [Utah].
BM:
And are you just south of the City of Rocks then? Is that close by?
FW:
Not too close, no. City of Rocks is farther west in Idaho.
BM:
Right.
FW:
And farther north.
BM:
Okay. Now you’re looking at population ecology – were there students involved with you
at that time – undergrad and graduate research?
FW:
Well particularly graduate students. My early graduate students worked with me on – and
themselves had degree of projects – working both on coyotes and jackrabbits. But then
we spread out and conducted research on other aspects of the fauna in Curlew Valley. I
had a student studying badger; I had a student studying antelope ground squirrel; I had a
student studying raptors. So we were looking at a good share of the fauna.
So I was really working in what we call the high desert of the Great Basin. In the late
1960s a national program came along which was part of what more broadly was called
the International Biological Program. And Congress appropriated large funds for the
American component of the International Biological Program. The major effort in the
IBP was dividing up the U.S. into biomes and bringing together large numbers of
investigators from numerous institutions to study each of these biomes. And one of the
biomes was the Desert Biome. The organizers of the biome program looked over the
institutions here in the West and by that time we at Utah State had a pretty sizable
program – both in plant and animal ecology – that really began in the College of Natural
Resources. So I sort of threw our hat in the ring for consideration to administer the Desert
Biome Program. Eventually we were accorded that responsibility.
We worked with about two dozen western institutions, all collaborating on research in
different sites in the intermountain west: one in Nevada, one in New Mexico, one in
Arizona, and Curlew Valley again, as the high desert representative. I started out as the
Deputy Director, then became Co-Director, and finally Director of the Desert Biome
Program; and so that got me more broadly involved in desert research. I ended up with a
project on the fringe of the Sahara in North Africa, but also collaborated with people
working in the Israeli deserts, in the Indian deserts, even in the Australian deserts. So it
brought me quite a bit of foreign travel to desert areas and different parts of the world, as
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�well as our getting around and collaborating on desert research around the Intermountain
West.
BM:
Can I ask a question on that?
FW:
Yes.
BM:
When you went to those different areas, did you go [individually or with] an
interdisciplinary team, to look at the specific problems of those desert biomes? [Was] this
a time when the general understanding of the ecology of deserts was becoming
widespread?
FW:
All of the above.
BM:
Okay. So did your team, your desert biome team from this station then go, or were you
mixing with other people?
FW:
Well we went to some conferences and some sort of interdisciplinary meetings, but
mostly I was doing the traveling. And I went alone to interact with the desert researchers
in Israel, in India, and in Australia. So I was fortunate to do some of that travel myself,
but also I would go with a party of maybe four or five people as well.
BM:
Um-hmm.
FW:
Also, another area was in one of the provinces of what was then the Soviet Union:
Turkmenistan, where we looked at the central Asian deserts of what was then the Soviet
Union.
BM:
What kind of things did you find?
FW:
Well we were looking at whether deserts elsewhere in the world were different than ours,
or whether one could propose any scientific generalities that apply to deserts. And in fact
we did. We saw similar behavior of the vegetation; similar behavior in the evolutionary
directions of the animals, parallel principles operating in all of the arid lands of the world
where the plants and animals have evolved to cope with those kinds of conditions.
BM:
Um-hmm. That’s fascinating. So –
FW:
Well, let’s see. The Biome Program ended at the end of the 1970s. And I was involved in
a miscellany of things after that. (Give me a minute to think, turn it off!) [Laughing]
That kind of paints some of the actual ecological research directions my career has taken.
Some of those research aspects got me into questions of policy and interaction of policy
and science. For example, my research with coyotes in Utah landed me on a national
panel assigned to evaluate the pros and cons of predator control in the West. So as I
looked at the evidence for what predator control does and does not do to the native biota,
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�but also the pros and cons of its use for basically reducing sheep losses to coyotes in the
West, I began to see how policies that were set on predator control did and did not look at
the biological realities – the scientific realities – of what was happening. So that started
my interest in the interface between science and policy and the degree to which science
does or does not influence policy.
When I first arrived at Utah State I was teaching a course in big game management and
we’re not that far from Yellowstone National Park. So in my first winter here I scheduled
a bus and took the students in the big game class to Yellowstone Park to look at the
management of national parks but also to observe this wonderful area with huge numbers
of big game animals. So that got me involved in Yellowstone and I learned about their
management policies at that point in time in the early 60s. Within a few years after I
started those trips I got involved in the Biome Program and a number of other things, so I
turned the trips over to another faculty member, who in the latter 60s took students up
and learned that there had been a change of personnel and a reversal of policies that had
been in place in Yellowstone for probably a good 40 years. And the original policy
seemed to be well supported by the science that was being done in the Park and suddenly
now there was this change in policy and a change in the science. The scientists were
saying very different things from what previous scientists had said for a 40 year period.
So that raised my curiosity on another issue of the role of science in policy. It raised my
interest in the interface between science and policy. But I was not doing any research in
Yellowstone so I could not publish any professionally based opinions or critiques on the
situation.
But in the mid 80s I met a person who was doing research at his own expense on what
was going on in Yellowstone. He had a master’s degree from the University of Montana,
so I persuaded him to come to Utah State to work on a doctorate to expand the work he
was doing in Yellowstone and I found funding for his research. He did a massive five
year study and drew conclusions that were in accord with what I thought was going on in
Yellowstone and with what the 40 years of earlier research had found. So that increased
my interest in the interface between science and policy and why suddenly science had
been changed where policy had been changed.
BM:
Who was that student?
FW:
Charles Kay was the student.
So at that point Kay’s work was funded by the Welder Wildlife Foundation in Texas,
whose director I had known as a graduate student. We were registered together in
Wisconsin. So I persuaded Welder to fund Kay’s research. Well at that time this person
(his name is Jim Teer) and at that point Jim was president of The Wildlife Society. So
Jim, as president, asked me to chair a study of wildlife policies in the American national
parks which I did. And we conducted a study and eventually published a book on it,
published by Island Press; the title Wildlife Policies in U.S. National Parks. So that just
furthered my interest in the interface between science and policy.
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�So now we’re into the 1990s. And at this point the world and the U.S. is starting to wake
up to the reality of climate change – of global warming.
BM:
Just one question because you’ve got about three minutes. The Yellowstone fires have
occurred, is that significant at this time? With the challenges to policy?
FW:
The Yellowstone fires primarily burned the higher elevation areas of Yellowstone,
whereas my student’s study was about the effects of elk on what’s called the northern
range, a lower elevation region, on the north fringe of the Park. And the fires did not have
much affect on the northern range. So our work really did not address the fire issue.
Well Charles Kay finished his Doctoral degree in 1990. I published the book on wildlife
policies in American National Parks. A few years lapsed, but in the late 90s the director
for the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, in Santa Barbara,
California invited me to come out and be a fellow in the center and write a book on
Yellowstone – which I then did. And so I published that and the title is Yellowstone’s
De-stabilized Ecosystem: Elk Effects, Science and Policy Conflict. So that’s pretty well
brought up to date and kind of ended my involvement in Yellowstone.
We should go back and mention that I was doing the coyote studies in Curlew Valley in
my early years at Utah State, and I applied for a grant with the Fish and Wildlife Service
in Denver. They gave me the grant and assigned a man by the name of Fred Knowlton,
who at that time was their employee studying coyotes in Texas. After I got to know Fred
I told him that he was a single person working on a difficult project and I was a single
person working on a difficult project and that he ought to move to Utah State and we
would collaborate in our coyote studies. And so Fred did and that was the beginning of
the predator studies and the predator unit here at Utah State University.
[Tape 1 of 1: B]
BM:
(Tape one, side 2) And we’re continuing.
FW:
A bit more about the Fred Knowlton relationship. Fred at the time was with the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service and his research was later transferred to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. Now Fred and I collaborated in the Curlew Valley research, but Fred
extended his efforts much more broadly into the effectiveness of predator control on
coyotes in different areas around the West. He’s done quite a bit of research in coyote
behavior and started a large cage facility in which he must have scores of coyotes caged
to study their behavior, their physiology, their nutrition, etc., in the southern part of
Cache Valley (in Millville). And Fred has then expanded his staff and I think right now
there must be – well I’m not sure how many people are at Millville – but here on campus
we have three people involved in that research. And they’ve spread out; it’s now called a
Predator Ecology Unit. So they’re working on a variety of projects. For example one of
the people has just published a paper on the inter-relationship of wolves, coyotes and
pronghorn antelope. And the deal is that wolves dominate coyotes and coyotes kill
pronghorns. And so there is some evidence that when wolves are re-established they
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�reduce coyote populations and thus reduce fawn mortality in pronghorn antelope. So
they’re involved in a number of predator ecological issues.
My earlier involvement, the earlier years in desert research has morphed into my most
recent heavy involvement. In 1991 Congress passed the Global Change Research Act
instructing the Executive Branch of government to conduct an assessment of the potential
effects of climate change on the nation. The administrators of that program divided the
nation into 17 regions – one of which was the nine state Rocky Mountain/Great Basin
Region. I was asked to coordinate the assessment in that region. You see each of the
regions then was asked to do the assessment because the Global Change Research
Program wasn’t going to build a huge bureaucracy to do this. So they divided up the
country and then went out into each of the regions and asked people in the regions to do
the assessments.
BM:
Um-hmm.
FW:
So beginning in 1998 I began coordinating the Rocky Mountain/Great Basin Regional
Assessment. First of all we looked at the entire weather record of all weather stations in
the nine state intermountain regions to ascertain whether or not there had been climate
change during the 20th century – which of course we found there was warming. In some
areas, increase in precipitation, others not. In those areas where precipitation increased
stream flow increased; in those areas where it did not, the streams did not increase in
flow. So then we said, “Okay, the models now are predicting even more warming and in
some areas more increased precipitation in the west during the 21st century if greenhouse
gases continue to increase without being checked in some way, as predicted.” So we said,
“Alright, given these increases what are the implications for water resources in the West,
agriculture in the West, natural ecosystems in the West, outdoor recreation and tourism in
the West?” And so we looked at all those things and projected on the basis of the
predicted increases in temperature and precipitation; and of course we granted that these
were provisional and that the effects that we were projecting only would occur if the
climate did in fact increase as the general circulation models were predicting. So we then
completed that and published the results in 2003.
Now on the basis of my involvement in that assessment, I am now involved in a variety
of things on global warming. I just finished editing and partially writing a book that’s to
be published by the University of Utah Press and titled Climate Warming in the
West/Evidence and Environmental Effects. As we are speaking here I am finishing a
manuscript for a paper in the journal Conservation Biology on the ecological effects of
global warming: both what has occurred to date, and what is projected given continued
increase in temperature and changes in precipitation. I’m giving numerous talks on the
subject, to a variety of groups, all the way from women’s clubs, Rotary clubs, to
professional groups. I was just asked to give a talk to the Sierra Club in Utah at the end of
May. I’m probably averaging one or two lectures a month on this subject, as well as
writing a number of things on it.
BM:
What’s the kind of response you get from the groups?
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�FW:
Most groups listen attentively and are reasonably receptive.
BM:
Um-hmm.
FW:
I haven’t talked to any groups of skeptics, so I haven’t heard from any naysayers. But I
read the letters to the editor and the blogs from the naysayers, so I know what they’re
saying and I have opinions on the positions they’re taking, but I haven’t had any critical
comments in the talks that I’ve given.
BM:
Um-hmm. Is there a common question that, when you think of those audiences, a
common question that comes up over and over again?
FW:
Well it is increasingly accepted that the globe is warming – after all, the weather records
show it; and we know the glaciers are melting; and we know that snow caps in the
western mountains are shrinking. So, I mean that’s there, if anybody has their eyes open
you can’t deny that. Well, first of all, some people say, “Well the climate has always
changed over the history of the earth, so maybe this is just natural.” So that’s one
skeptical comment. The other is, “Well, okay, maybe the globe is warming but how can
you say that humans are causing it?” So those are the two most frequent skeptical
comments.
BM:
How do you answer some of those?
FW:
First of all, I’ll take the second of those. On the question of “How do you know humans
are causing it?” The physics of the greenhouse effects has been known to science since
the 1800s and it is well established that there is a very small component of carbon dioxide
in our atmosphere – it’s a tiny component – but that is the major greenhouse gas in our
atmosphere. And atmospheric physicists calculate that were not for that small amount of
CO2 in the atmosphere our globe would be 54 degrees colder than it is and uninhabitable.
So the effectiveness of carbon dioxide is far out of proportion to its extreme effect. So
that’s why when the climatologists say, “Alright, carbon dioxide has been measured to
increase by a third during the 20th century,” we ought to be concerned about changes in a
compound that is so incredibly influential on our climates. And the predictions are that if
we don’t do something to abate CO2 emissions, they are likely to increase – given how
much the population is going to increase and how much national economies are going to
increase that are supported by energy production – during the 21st century if we don’t do
something there is a strong possibility that the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere
will double during the 21st century. So that’s the reason for the concern. Now there are
other measurements that show that carbon dioxide now is a third higher than it’s been at
any point in the last 650,000 years. So there are all sorts of scientific bases supporting the
idea that CO2 is increasing at an accelerated rate to levels beyond what it’s been for
hundreds of thousands of years, and the influence of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas
is well understood to science. So people who challenge that don’t know that science, and
they’re challenging it on the basis really of ignorance.
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�[Stop recording]
BM:
Okay Fred, we’re back on. Let’s finish with a question on, in terms of the skeptics –
what’s motivating the skeptics?
FW:
Skepticism is coming from three socio-economic groups in our society. One is energy
companies, particularly the coal industry for example, but also the oil companies, who are
scared to death that we’re going to enter into massive renewable energy production that
will put them out of business. So it’s just a matter of record, well known, that the energy
companies are paying our politicians – first of all they’re putting out dis-information on
the issue and paying our politicians hopefully to resist any strong action on the issue.
The second is (and I am now revealing my political inclinations), but the political
conservatives are negatively disposed toward doing anything about climate warming
because they’re concerned that it will mean organizing large government agencies and
thereby increasing the size of government; and placing constraints on human actions
which their political ideology is resistant to. That’s their point of view, so it’s fair
enough. But that’s where some of the resistance is coming from.
Then finally, I have to say it, it’s coming from some of the extreme religious groups.
Some of whom are saying that, “Well God would not allow for these bad things to
happen to our globe.” Or alternatively, some of them are saying that the “end times” the
“second coming of Christ” is imminent, so those of us who have been properly religious
will then be taken into heaven and others who have not will be destroyed with the earth.
And that event is just around the corner, so there’s no concern with getting excited about
the future of our globe. Now that’s only the extremists in the religious right and I must
say that some of those people are now breaking away – and this is true, for example of a
large collection of church pastors who are now pursuing the attitude that, “Well the earth
was created by God and it is our responsibility to take care of it.” So that particular socioeconomic religious group is now in the process of change.
So to look back over my career, I’ve spent my career in science, both basic and applied, I
value it tremendously. And if I had to do it over again knowing what I know now I
wouldn’t do anything different. I think science is one of the great accomplishments of the
human intellect. I adopt as a personal principle that I don’t advocate policy because I fear
that if I do it will raise some concerns about the objectivity of my science and trust in my
science. So my view is that science is a service to policy. It provides an environment of
fact, knowledge and information that enlightens policy-making. It’s up to the policy
makers and the politicians to make the policy decisions, hopefully in the bright light of
objective scientific knowledge.
BM:
Thank you.
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�
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Fred Wagner interview, 15 April 2008, and transcription
Description
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The interview contains information on Fred Wagner's childhood, moving around the nation, and interest in the outdoors. He discusses his goal to be a rancher and his experience working as a cowboy where he realized his interest in plants and animals. He then discusses his education at Southern Methodist University (SMU) and later at the University of Wisconsin (where Aldo Leopold was a professor, arriving shortly after his death). He discusses his views on the interface of science and policy, and his experience with such throughout his career doing scientific research.
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Wagner, Frederic H.
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Middleton, Barbara
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Wagner, Frederic H.--Interviews
Wagner, Frederic H.--Career in Wildlife Research
Utah State University. Dept. of Fisheries and Wildlife--Faculty--Interviews
Animal populations--Research--Utah
Population biology--Research--Utah
Population biology--Research--Curlew Valley (Idaho and Utah)
Deserts--Research
Wildlife management--Research--Yellowstone National Park
Predation (Biology)--Research--Utah
Knowlton, Frederick Frank, 1934-
Global warming
Natural resources--Law and legislation
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Oral histories
Interviews
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Las Vegas (Nevada)
Clark County (Nevada)
Nevada
Curlew Valley (Utah)
Box Elder County (Utah)
Snowville (Utah)
Utah
United States
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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1930-1939
1940-1949
1950-1959
1960-1969
1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999
20th century
2000-2009
21st century
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eng
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 4 Fd. 6
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Inventory for the Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection can be found at: <a href="http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php">http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php</a>
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of the USU Fife Folklore Archives Curator, phone (435) 797-3493
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Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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3cebf608b6ac4373b04f76c89d8ed02d
http://highway89.org/files/original/73a6931bb0b2e17df2147c0682e319b9.pdf
d833298321ba77377d1b2e6270e11701
PDF Text
Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Janet Quinney Lawson
Place of Interview: Ms. Lawson’s home; Salt Lake City, Utah
Date of Interview: April 28, 2008
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Brad Cole and Barbara Middleton
Brad Cole
Recording Equipment:
Marantz PMD660 Digital Recorder
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Susan Gross
Brad Cole, February 2009; Randy Williams, 25 February 2009 and
14 July 2011; Becky Skeen, Fall 2012
Brief Description of Contents: Janet Quinney Lawson talks about her childhood memories at
her family’s summer home at Bear Lake and at family members’ homes in Cache Valley, Utah.
She talks a lot about skiing and sailing on/at the Wasatch Front, Utah and in Cache Valley and
Bear Lake.
Reference:
BC = Brad Cole (Interviewer; Associate Dean, USU Libraries)
BM = Barbara Middleton (Interviewer; Interpretive Specialist, Environment &
Society Dept., USU College of Natural Resources)
JL = Janet Quinney Lawson
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with
brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 2: A]
BM:
[This is Barbara Middleton of the] Natural Resources at Utah State University. [I am]
here with Brad Cole. Cole [interviewer] is the Director of Special Collections at USU
Libraries. And we are here with Janet Quinney Lawson in her home in Salt Lake City, on
a beautiful spring day. This is Monday, April 28th [2008] and it’s about 2-2:15 in the
afternoon.
So Janet, if you would please say your full name and when and where you were born.
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�JL:
My full name is Janet Quinney Lawson. And I was born here in 1922 at the LDS
Hospital, as I recall.
BM:
In Salt Lake City?
JL:
Uh-huh. I guess I was born there.
BM:
Can I ask you, just to start off would you be willing to share the earliest memories of
your father?
JL:
Yeah, I was kind of scared of him! He was not a child’s best friend or “daddy.” He was
stern and he lived and he made you kind of tow the mark. As I grew older I began to
appreciate him. He was a superman. I used to run the rivers with him.
BC:
What was his name?
JL:
My father?
BC:
Yes.
JL:
S. J. Quinney. Seymour Joseph Quinney.
BM:
And running rivers – what kind of rivers are we talking about?
JL:
Oh! Colorado and Hell’s Canyon and all the rivers of the west. We used to run them in
row boats. It was great fun; I loved it. And we would do that and pull out wherever we
pulled out. I know I went down the river when I was – gosh, I guess six months or more
pregnant with Peter (my youngest son). But I didn’t tell Dad and I wore, you know a
blouse that hung out. And he didn’t even [know]. He wondered, I think he said, on
occasions. But boy when I told him driving out of Preston, poor father! It was a real
blow! Now he wanted to know if Fred knew, and I said, “Well of course.” “Did your
mother know?” and I said, “Yes.” “Did she approve?” I said, “Sure she did, she thought I
was alright to do that.” And I loved it! It was great fun and I didn’t have any problem.
We went down Hell’s Canyon and came out at Preston maybe?
BC:
Maybe Lewiston area?
JL:
Yeah! Way up there –
BC:
Right.
JL:
On the Oregon – yeah we pulled out there and then we drove home. We brought a car the
bank had repossessed up in Preston, I guess, or some place for Aunt Eve who was
Bammie Eccles’ sister and never had any children and so she adopted all of Bammie’s
children and all of her grandchildren. And we were very close and she used to stay at our
house. Her husband was an engineer on the railroad and so he was out of town a lot. And
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�she used to come up and stay with Bammie in Logan. Then she would come back here
and she would come up to the house. She lived out on the west side way out by Wasatch
High School and then she’d come in and up to the house and stay. And it was great fun,
she was a lovely person. She finally devoted a lot of her time to Bammie up in Logan –
she wasn’t really sick but anyway, she was getting old (in those days). They were half
sisters – same father, different mothers. So that’s what we did.
BM:
So speaking of mothers, what is your earliest memory of your mom?
JL:
My word! [Speaking to herself] Earliest memory [of] mom.
I don’t know! I guess running a pretty tight ship when I was little and not even in school
yet. But I had a friend – a life-long friend that lived across the street: Kay Henderson.
She was my dear friend. We used to go to school together. She’d go with us. She came
from a rather upbeat, youngest Dr. Dave’s family who was an eye, ear, nose and throat
[doctor] in Salt Lake. Kay and I – well we just plain grew up together. She didn’t have
quite as athletic of a background. She did fine, but she came from a family of kind of a
bunch of kids and they couldn’t spend the money for ski clothing and so on. We
remained friends all through our lives. She died three years ago in Cape Cod. It was a
good, long-standing relationship I must say.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
And it was fun to go over there because it was a big family. And I had only my brother
Dave who couldn’t be bothered much with me which was fine. But growing up in the
neighborhood but it was fun.
BM:
Was she someone that went with you when you traveled to Bear Lake or Logan?
JL:
Kay?
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
Oh yeah! She went to Bear Lake. Every year she would come up and go with us. They
were sort of, you know, more religious. Her mother didn’t like her to miss church, but she
did. My mother would talk her into it and say that she could go to church at Bear Lake. I
don’t remember if she ever did or not. Maybe we did a few times. I can’t remember
really. That wasn’t one of my great points in growing up.
BM:
Would you tell us a little bit about some of your early memories of Bear Lake and
traveling over there?
JL:
Oh. Wow. First thing that happened was that we had a seven passenger Buick. Now that’s
a pretty big car and it had little jumpseats. But we always had our dog, Tip, and I had the
cat, Tawny, and three kittens usually. And we would pile into the car and we’d chug
along and go up to Logan. And then we’d spend the night at Bammie’s house—Bammie
Eccles’ not Bammie Quinney’s—but Bammie Eccles’. Then we’d get up the next
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�morning and mother would drive us [o]n that old, broken down road that was a one-way
road really, you know. People just didn’t go up to Bear Lake that way except people in
Logan maybe, but we did! We’d go up there and haul in.
That time we stayed up in Idaho – my first recollection of staying at Bear Lake was in
Idaho. Mother rented the Gray house. Mr. Gray was the First Security Bank’s president in
Montpelier, Idaho. Yeah, that’s how it was. He was there and we rented this house
because by now they’d fallen upon hard times, then they went through a depression. The
bank went bust, or whatever. It was kind of tough. But anyway, we rented that house for
quite a few years. Then mother went out buzzing around one day and the next thing she
did was come home and say, “I bought a house.”
So down at Ideal Beach was a house that was owned by a Mr. Boyer who was a very
successful (I don’t know what he was!) man – businessman. That went kind of belly-up
and he had to sell the house. And here was this house that was completely furnished,
lock, stock and barrel–silver and china and bedding and more bedding. And then Dad
bought the lot, finally he talked Sister Boyer (maybe; Sister somebody) – and he sweettalked her. On part of that lot there was a lumber mill. And they’d cut the logs which was
fine except all the sawdust they pushed into the lake. Well that doesn’t deteriorate really.
So we had many years where every time we’d go down everybody would take a bucket of
some sort. And we’d haul out the logging –
BM:
Sawdust?
JL:
Yeah. Well finally we got rid of it, I guess. Of course that was many a year ago. Mother
came home and Dad nearly had a fit! But what she got that house for was—lock, stock
and barrel. I think it was something like $800. It was just ridiculous! And it was the
house we had. Dad, finally when Mother told him and he went to see what was going on,
he knew the piece of ground. I don’t know what he did. A lawyer did that as a “Thank
you very much people.” And so he was in good standing with the locals.
They just got out and they cut that house in three parts and they moved it! And it wasn’t
out that much. It was just amazing! I remember when they did it and I remember Mother
went up to Bear Lake. And that fireplace of course was stone from across the lake. It was
a big hole because they had to knock it down when they moved the house. So all Mother
could see was this hole and oh she went into great sobs of mourning that the house would
never be the same. Well of course it is the same and much better, and added on to, to
some degree. We added on—we changed the kitchen quite a bit and added another
bedroom and bath back there because Mother always had somebody to go to help. That
extended the kitchen on out further and behind the kitchen was another bedroom.
BM:
Um-hmm. Now Ideal Beach is – when I look at this map – Ideal Beach is south of the
Junction coming over to Garden City, but you were saying you were north to start off
with?
JL:
Oh no, no, no. Here we are. Let’s see. [Looking at a map]
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�BM:
Here’s Ideal.
JL:
Here’s Ideal. We’re down there to – what does that say?
BM:
That says Ideal Beach, Sweet Water Marina. So they’re just showing –
JL:
There, yeah well here’s –
BM:
That’s the Highway rest stop down there. So right around Rendezvous Beach State Park,
which is very historic.
JL:
Yeah. We moved it down about 2 miles that way and about one mile from Garden City.
BM:
My goodness! And you literally picked up the house and moved it?
JL:
Yeah, it was just crazy what they did!
BC:
About what year was that, do you remember?
JL:
Well I can think, but wait a minute. Let’s see – I think I was 16 maybe; 15 or 16. Yeah,
so how old would that make me? Since I’m 86.
BC:
So it would have been about 1937.
JL:
Yeah, something.
BC:
You said you spent a few years in Montpelier [Idaho]? Would that have been in the early
1930s? When you lived in Montpelier and rented Mr. Gray’s house?
JL:
No, that was in Fish Haven!
BC:
Fish Haven?
JL:
Down on the lake. That was their summer home!
BC:
Oh, okay. So he lived in Montpelier, but also had a house [on the lake] – okay.
JL:
Yeah they lived in Montpelier – Banker Gray – and had a beautiful home there. And
there was Grove and Fred. Fred was the oldest son, then they had Grove and then they
had a sister. What was her name? She was a cripple; she was born with faulty legs or
something, I don’t remember what. She was a lovely person but she was certainly
incapacitated. Times were hard. They opened up this fox farm in Fish Haven—Grove and
Fred. Fred first and then he went off and went into business and then Grove took it over.
And they raised these [foxes], they were a big thing in those days I guess.
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�BM:
And they were fox they were raising?
JL:
Yeah, they were foxes.
BM:
And what were they raising them for?
JL:
For the fur.
BM:
Okay. How interesting.
JL:
Yeah, they really would. Fur coats; not really coats so much, it would take too many
foxes. Oh, I remember. I never went down there though when they were slaughtering the
foxes. That was not my cup of tea. Nor go out – yeah I did. I went out with them when
they would go buy an old horse that was tired and slaughter it to feed the foxes. And of
course you had to be down there every day. They had to eat. It was fun, I liked it. It’s
nothing anybody else would like, but I did. Getting all bloody! Mother used to just shake
her head and say, “My goodness, what have I got here?” See I was a little, bitty kid. I
wasn’t very big at all. I mean structurally I was very small, but boy I was a terror I guess!
Poor thing.
BM:
Now did you go over there winter as well as summer?
JL:
Huh-uh. No, never did.
BM:
So mostly summer?
JL:
Yeah. What we usually did was plan to go up there on, well around the 4th of July and
then we’d close it up to some degree and get somebody to come in and drain the water;
which we still do. But things are changing up there; very definitely changing. And I can
envision–we’re not building anymore house. Rick was talking, I know, about building on
to the bedroom wing and putting in another few bedrooms and a bath. I think we kind of
decided that wasn’t a good plan. Anyway, I don’t think it’s happening, and it’s not my
problem. I’m not going to be here to run that.
BM:
So when you say, “things are changing up there,” what do you mean? What kinds of
things did you see change?
JL:
Oh! Oh the building is simply incredible that’s going on. And across the street and on up
Hodge’s Canyon it’s all subdivided and people are building houses up on the hillside.
And then they come down and go probably over to Ideal Beach, Bluewater Beach and go
on to swim or put their boats in or whatever they have.
BM:
Was that something that you did when you were a child, boating?
JL:
Yeah. Dad had the only sailboat on the lake I guess, for years. And then we also had an
outboard motor boat and then we got – well, let’s see. What have we got up there now?
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�Peter has a Hobie Cat up there. (Peter is my youngest son.) And he has this Hobie Cat
and he also has – yeah I think he’s got a motor boat too.
BM:
So sailing was something that you learned from your father?
JL:
What?
BM:
Sailing was something you learned from your father?
JL:
Yeah.
BM:
Did your mother also sail?
JL:
No, she didn’t. That wasn’t her cup of [tea]– she’d go out there sometimes with Dad.
They’d go out alone and just sail. Dad would sail very quietly, not too far out from the
shore. But, yeah she went out boating. She went out boating – I had a boat too. That was
a power boat. You know that lake isn’t constant. It varies – they pumped it out for
irrigation upstream. Well, they don’t want it anymore upstream. Anyway, last year they
pumped because the pumps would run out of – there was no water for them. And now
they’re going to let that go back. They’ve sold it to, I don’t remember the name of the
people they sold it to, but they are not interested in alfalfa which is what they used the
water for.
[Looking out the window] Oh, whoa. Looking out there at the sky, can you see?
BM:
Oh yeah; leaving a jet trail.
JL:
You see that? Yeah. Big old thing going across.
Dad had a lot of foresight. However people don’t know and we don’t tell them that we
have as much land as we have. But we’re well-protected on the north side and the south
side of our property. And it of course goes to the children and I guess they like it. I think
they’ll use it.
[Speaking to somebody else] Who’s that?
BM:
Sounds like somebody is talking on the phone.
JL:
Maybe.
And I don’t know, I just had some rare old times and fun times up there; very happy
memories. It [Bear Lake property] has this great, big screened-in porch that goes all
around half the house and the dining room table is outside. And there is a couch out there
and Grandfather Eccles’ rocking chair, old leather rocking chair. It just has lots of
memories. We have a book that we keep and people write in it.
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�BM:
Like the visitors that come?
JL:
Yeah, yeah. And it’s nice and it’s fun. And it’s fun to look back and it’s fun to look and
see when I decided I better go home is when I was going to have that baby. And I did.
BM:
[Laughing] Now which child was that then?
JL:
It was Peter.
BM:
Peter? Okay.
JL:
Yeah. See, he’s 10 years younger. He was really an after-thought. He wasn’t a
happenstance – he was planned on and conceived. And he went down Hell’s Canyon with
me unborn. I didn’t tell Mother about it. I told Dad about it on the way home. And he
said, “Does your mother know?” And I said, “Yeah.” He said, “I thought you were
looking a little dumpy.” Yeah, that was May and Peter was born in August. Yeah, I was
well along. I didn’t care, that was fun. I skied and I did everything!
BM:
Could you tell us a little bit about your skiing?
JL:
Well –
BM:
Where did you start?
JL:
There is Ecker Hill up Parley’s Canyon; Dave and Dad got involved in that through the
jumping. Dad got interested in judging and got interested in the Norwegian people and he
judged all the time up there, ski-jumping. And that is how Dave got going. I didn’t ever
go off Ecker Hill—I was too little. I went off Rasmussen’s Hill which was down the way.
But heavens! I didn’t even have bindings then. I think we took inner tubes and cut them
and put them around the toe and around the outside of the toe and around the back. Those
were our bindings. That was many a year ago!
BM:
That was inner tubing on wood?
JL:
Well the inner tubing I used for bindings –
BM:
Oh!
JL:
BM:
They were like the old wood skis with a toe strap. That was it. And then you got a hold of
that and then you got a hold of the inner tube and cut a piece about that thick and put it
over your toe and over the toe of your boot and back over your heel and off you went on
Rasmussen’s Jump. And it was a scaffold that was built and came down and landed on
the hill and ran out. Oh, it was fun!
How did you get up to the top?
JL:
Climbed.
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�BM:
On snowshoes or boots?
JL:
No, no. We just climbed on our feet on the little hill I jumped. But the boys, the big
jumpers – Al Bangerter and his tribe and us – they just put their skis over their shoulder
and walked up to the top.
BM:
Hmm.
JL:
Boy am I thirsty. Do you want some water or something?
BM:
Actually, I’m fine.
BC:
I’m fine right now.
JL:
Are you? Alright.
BM:
So those are the days before ski lifts and riding on top of the mountain.
JL:
Dad did the first lift in Alta – Collins lift – he did that. I mean when I say he did it – he
got 10 business friends of his to each put in x number of dollars (which I don’t know).
Ecker Hill was there, but it was pretty rough and I think they used it, but not for
tournaments and things. But he did. They built that and set it up. Now how does that
work? I was thinking that it was the biggest ski jump in North America. Whether it was
there or whether it was – I don’t know – in the Northwest. I don’t know. I would have to
research that and look it up. But there wasn’t an awful lot of ski jumping even.
But then I got my first pair of skis. I was little – I didn’t grow very much.
[Tape 1 of 2: B]
JL:
Celeste can get you something. These caregivers I have are just wonderful.
BM:
Oh, I bet. It’s nice to have people here.
JL:
Yeah. Well I didn’t have them here except during the day, but then I fell a year ago in
Moab and cracked it!
BM:
So now you have someone with you day and night.
JL:
I have somebody, yeah. I have two of them that are here day and night.
BM:
That’s great.
JL:
Yeah it is! I like it and they seem to like it, so.
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�BM:
JL:
So let’s go back to something you were saying. I am trying to picture the trip when you
were a young girl from, not just Salt Lake to Logan, but Logan over –
To Bear Lake?
BM:
-- to Bear Lake. I’m trying to picture that road.
JL:
Well at first it was even just a dirt road. Mother in the seven passenger car and the cat and
the dog and a couple of kittens and Dave and I was there and BM was there I guess (or
some household help). And we’d go to Logan and stay overnight at Bammie’s house –
Grandmother Eccles’ house – and go chuckety, chuckety, chuck the next day. And
sometimes your old car would heat up and you would have to sit there and wait for it to
cool down so you could go on [laughing]. But we always stopped at Rick Springs.
BM:
Oh, sure!
JL:
That was very different then than it is now. Because, I don’t know what they’ve done but
you can’t even hardly see it without getting out and walking! Well, I mean it wasn’t that
way in those days.
BM:
So you got there and you parked your car, and what did you do at Ricks Springs?
JL:
Oh, we’d have a drink or have a sandwich or have some water. It was just halfway and it
was good and it was fun and it was nice. And we always did that. Now I flew past – well
I haven’t been up through Logan Canyon because it’s been all under construction and a
mess. And then going in Roy into Ogden – that highway is just one big, bloody mess and
I haven’t gone there. I don’t when that’s ever going to get done. And I don’t know when
they’re going to quit monkeying with that road up the canyon.
BM:
Well they just did some bridge improvements, and that was quite –
JL:
Oh yeah.
BM:
-- quite a bit as far as stopping traffic one-way, and.
JL:
Yeah, because that one bridge goes over a great, big –
BM:
Oh, that’s the large one on the curve?
JL:
Yeah.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
And I don’t know. I haven’t been up Logan Canyon—I don’t remember if I even went up
last year because I just get on and zoom up here to Evanston and then-
BM:
So that’s your new route?
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�JL:
Yeah.
BM:
Over 80 to Evanston and then up?
JL:
BM:
Um-hmm.
Um-hmm. Now when you went through the earlier part when you went through Logan
Canyon, did you ever go to some of the places like Ephraim’s Grave (the big bear), or ?
JL:
Uh-huh. And they had, what an MIA Home or something?
BM:
What is that?
JL:
Up at the first dam or something?
BM:
Oh!
JL:
No, second dam I guess. And we used to cross the bridge and go up there and there was –
I don’t know and MIA. Maybe it wasn’t, maybe it was something else. I don’t know.
BM:
Hmm.
JL:
But anyway it was a camp and the kids used to go up there for, you know, camping out –
like Girl Scouts, only they were something else in those days.
BC:
So when you say, “MIA,” do you mean Mutual Improvement Association?
JL:
Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. [Mostly likely talking about Camp Lomia, past 3rd Dam a few
miles.]
BM:
So was that possibly the Scout Camp at St. Anne’s?
BC:
Might be, I’m not sure.
JL:
What?
BM:
Was it St. Anne’s?
JL:
What ?
BM:
The camp you’re talking about?
JL:
I don’t know.
BM:
Hmm. It was on the right hand side as you go up the canyon?
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�JL:
You went over the dam there, which they used, and the water that came out of there they
dammed it up. So, I don’t know what it was called. And besides it’s all different now.
Utah State has that big forestry place up there too.
BM:
Um-hmm. Have you been there?
JL:
Yeah. That’s Mr. Dad’s. I said, “Now you quit that!” He said, “Wouldn’t you rather have
me interested in it than somebody else?” I said, “Yes I would.”
BM:
So this is the forestry camp?
JL:
BM:
Uh-huh.
That’s on the right-hand side as you go up.
JL:
Um-hmm.
BM:
And was the – let’s see was it 1938 was the first summer camp up there? 1936?
Somewhere in that time?
JL:
Um-hmm.
BM:
And so what is your dad have to do with that?
JL:
Well, he gave them the money to start the training camp up there.
BM:
Oh, okay.
JL:
And bring the animals and so on.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
So that’s what he did.
BM:
It is a very important place for a lot of the foresters to get their start.
JL:
Oh I think so.
BM:
Yeah.
JL:
A lot of foresters. Um-hmm.
BM:
Also fire. As far as training young men to help with forest fires.
JL:
Now, that I didn’t know. But that’s interesting. It’s a good place, should be.
BM:
Yeah.
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�JL:
I don’t know why I don’t. I think they have one cabin up there that they save for Dad and
Mother or for me or somebody to go up and stay overnight. I think I told somebody; who
would I have told –
BM:
Was it Thad maybe?
JL:
Uh-huh, probably Thad.
BM:
So you have gone up and camped up at the Forestry Camp?
JL:
Yeah!
BM:
Oh, alright. Because there is one building that is the older building.
JL:
Yeah!
BM:
With all the pictures in it and the stove –
JL:
Right, right.
BM:
Okay.
JL:
What’s that called?
BM:
Well that is the old Forestry Camp CCC building.
JL:
Oh yeah.
BM:
And it’s the oldest building –
JL:
There.
BM:
It’s one of the oldest buildings there. And then there’s a larger dorm, which sleeps about
30 people.
JL:
There?
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
Yeah, that’s right. I do remember that.
BM:
Do you also remember – you know, part of that camp burned.
JL:
Oh, it certainly did! I had forgotten that. It really burned.
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�BM:
The kitchen – the lodge.
JL:
Oh, that was – they had to rebuild it totally didn’t they?
BM:
We haven’t rebuilt it yet.
JL:
Oh, I thought we had.
BM:
No, not yet. We’re looking, we’re hoping. We’re hoping. But right now it’s an open area;
there’s a small trailer that was there that serviced some of the work, but nothing like the
beautiful lodge that you must remember.
JL:
Yeah, although it was –
BM:
The dining hall –
JL:
Yeah. It was kind of little, as I recall.
BM:
Was it?
JL:
Yeah, it wasn’t like – in comparison to maybe the Girl Scout camp down here or –
BM:
Camp Cloud Rim?
JL:
Rim.
BM:
Right, right.
JL:
Camp Cloud Rim.
BM:
Which was also a CCC building.
JL:
Well I guess those lakes [cabins?] were owned by people, you know. They weren’t just
sitting there. I’m trying to think who – John Wallace; the Wallace family had up there.
And the Brimhall family; and I don’t know. Of course they gave it over to the Girl Scouts
and now they use it and have added onto it even since I was there.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
For the dedication of the building or whatever.
BM:
And that was back in the late 1990s.
JL:
I guess, yeah.
BM:
Um-hmm.
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�JL:
I guess it was.
BM:
Yeah.
JL:
Did they name it for me or something?
BM:
They did! Your name is on that building. [The Janet Quinney Lawson camp?]
JL:
I just live in horror.
[Laughing]
JL:
I say, “I’m giving you the money and you’re to go ahead, but don’t be putting my name.”
There it was.
BM:
[Laughing] It’s on a building on campus too, up at Utah State.
JL:
Yes it was! What was it – oh that little Quonset hut. Yeah! That’s a great place.
BM:
That’s a great building though. [Ms. Lawson was recognized by USU in 2004 during the
dedication of a building named in her honor. The Janet Quinney Lawson building houses
USU's Utah Climate Center and Remote Sensing/Geographic Information Systems
Laboratory along with other services.]
JL:
Oh, it is! I’ve been there when little kids have been there. One of them really attached
himself to me; poor little things.
BM:
Was that the Adaptive Technology part where they’re in the basement there?
JL:
Yeah.
BM:
Is there a lot of children in that program?
JL:
Yeah that are learning to speak or walk, or – yeah, they’re physically limited.
BM:
Right.
JL:
But it’s a great thing that they can do what they’re doing in that Quonset hut.
BM:
Um-hmm. And they help a lot of children get around.
JL:
Oh, I know. I just know they do. And that cute thing out in front of the Edith Bowen – is
it the Edith Bowen and Emma Eccles Jones, are they here?
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�BM:
They are. Emma Eccles Jones Building is the education building and then Edith Bowen is
the lab school, which is right next door.
JL:
Yeah. Is it west or is it –?
BM:
Edith Bowen is east –
JL:
Yeah, it’s east –
BM:
And then there is a sculpture –
JL:
Yeah, that’s a Van Dam
BM:
Right, right. With the two children and then the –
JL:
Yeah, then, uh-huh. And then Aunt Em’s building.
BM:
Right.
JL:
Dad’s building is there too; Dad and Mother’s.
BM:
Well that would be the College of Natural Resources building.
JL:
That’s right.
BM:
Right, right. And that’s right behind, that’s right to the south –
JL:
South.
BM:
Of your Quonset hut, that you call it.
JL:
That’s right. Well, that’s what it is!
BM:
It is! And you know there are still folks that come on campus that say, “I remember when
that was a Quonset hut.” And it kind of still looks like a Quonset hut!
JL:
I think it does. Yeah, I do.
BM:
It has the remote sensing lab in it now; where they do a lot of the geographic maps.
JL:
Oh there?
BM:
Um-hmm. There are several entities in that building.
JL:
Besides the little kids?
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�BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
Oh. Well I just know that those little children – it’s wonderful when they can finally get
them out. They’re kind of timid about everything of course, because they’ve been so
protected; but, what a break for the parents and the children themselves to be able to get
out.
BM:
And it’s also a great training center for the students.
JL:
Terrific! Just marvelous!
BM:
There are a lot of classes that go through there.
JL:
Well there’s kind of a lot of Eccles/Quinney stuff up there somehow.
BM:
There sure is! Now speaking of USU and getting back to Bear Lake – if you’re down
near Ideal Beach, aren’t you also close to the USU –
JL:
Yes! That Dad built?
BM:
Oh!
JL:
I think Dad built that – gave them the money to build it. Yeah, it’s just down, maybe, oh,
maybe three-quarters of a mile on the road.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
But you can walk it. Of course now let’s hope that they’ll be good enough to – can’t I get
you anything? I feel so –
BM:
No, I’m fine.
JL:
I feel terrible. [Ms Lawson is concerned for her guest’s needs.]
BC:
Oh, we’re fine.
BM:
When you were there, you talked about sailing and you talked about swimming. Were
there also holidays, like Raspberry Days?
JL:
Oh yes! And I remember when the raspberries weren’t [growing] because they got
diseased! A few years ago actually, that was. Oh yes, indeed!
BM:
Hmm. So what did you do for Raspberry Days?
JL:
Bought them and ate them.
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�[Laughing]
BC:
Well did they have – when you were a little girl, did they have raspberries then? Or did
that came later?
JL:
No, I think that came later. I think that was started by the Hodges family and their boys.
And they planted those and then psh! I don’t know what happened. They got a disease
though, and it really – it was something they couldn’t spray and kill and have it alright. It
imbedded itself and would appear on the next year if you planted them. So, I don’t know.
And now – I don’t know what they’re doing now. They’re behind that – what’s that
called? That new place by the marina, only on the other side of the road?
BM:
Oh that large development?
JL:
Yeah. And then on up and up and up and up. Yeah. And that’s all being subdivided. And
honestly I think Bear Lake is seeing the best of times. It’s – I’m concerned. I think it’s
just going to develop and develop and more and more and more. And people are able to
get there and they’re building houses. I don’t know, Well, I’ve got enough space that I
don’t need to worry too much about it.
BM:
When you were over there before the development, do you remember cattle or sheep, or –
with those hills where the homes are going – what was that landscape like?
JL:
Yeah. They ran cattle up Hodges Canyon.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
They could run cattle up there. And they did and I don’t know whether they still can or
just don’t do it because nobody’s interested in doing that kind of thing. All those people
died; faded away. Although Rula is here and Dolly is here. And Dolly has died and Rula
– Dad bought the piece that goes in front of Rula’s house is on that side. And she – what
did they do? They finally got her to go over to Logan to live in a place, a house, a rest
home or something in the winter. Because they said they wouldn’t leave her up there in
the winter anymore, she couldn’t navigate. So I don’t know. I may see her, I hope so. I’ll
have to find out.
BM:
And who is Rula?
JL:
Well, she’s a neighbor on the east side. And they have a house. And Tom used to help
Dad all the time with the planting of the garden vegetables and so on, and mowing and
one thing or another. Well, he died and so it was Rula’s. And so she sold us this section
that was theirs, adjacent to our north boundary. It’s a south boundary and it’s a lot. And
there’s nothing there except, oh beautiful roses.
BM:
Hmm.
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�JL:
I don’t know, I think one day maybe one of the kids will build something there. I’ve got a
few of them hanging around that are entitled to do what they want to do.
BM:
Okay, so who’s the other person you were talking about? Dolly was another neighbor?
JL:
Yeah and she was on the other side of Joel.
BM:
Okay.
JL:
And they just loved him. Oh they just did. And they just used to open our house and clean
it and so on. Of course those days have gone. Dolly died a couple of years ago I guess. I
believe she was a year older than I am; maybe two. And Rula is a year younger. I think
she had about 12 – Grandma Hodges. And oh, did she like Joel! He could just wiggle her
out of anything.
[Laughing]
JL:
And then he would do a lot, you know, and they had legal problems. Dad would help
them out. And he was very kind. And they all knew it and all loved him for it and it was
beneficial to us. Because see we own – well, God I don’t know how many front feet. I
don’t tell them that because they don’t tax us. It’s undeveloped.
BC:
Yeah.
BM:
Sure.
JL:
But Dad’s never paid taxes. It’s called wetland. And actually it is. It goes down toward
the USU building. There are a couple of houses and then the building is there.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
And it goes down there.
BC:
When you’d go up there in the summer as a young child, did your dad stay up with you
for the whole summer or did he come back to Salt Lake?
JL:
Oh, he’d come back, you know.
BC:
Uh-huh.
JL:
I think he just felt that he had to get back home. And he’d – sometimes he would stay up
an extra day or two, but he didn’t stay up like Mother did. But Mother would pack us up
and go in. Of course we had Mr. Coddle then and the store and that was fine. But that’s
no longer. It’s all so changed.
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�BC:
And would you spend any time up in the mountains hiking, riding horses or anything like
that?
JL:
Huh-uh. No, nope. I just did it on the lake. And I rode horses on the lake.
BM:
Huh. Now who had the horses?
JL:
Oh, somebody local. Yeah. I’d say one of the Hodges I suppose. Yeah, even had my little
kids which weren’t so little anymore – although maybe he died. They tore – I’m so mad
at them, you know? Up there across the street from my place there was that old house and
then that little log cabin that was the original old house. And when they bought that land
they ripped it all down! And that was a terrible thing to have done! I mean that was kind
of a historical little old log cabin!
BM:
Did you know the people that lived there?
JL:
Yeah, I did. He was interested in nothing but the money. Ron Hansen was his name. But I
don’t know. Things will change, there’s no question about it. Gosh! I look up there to see
Dad and was sitting down on the porch that we added on outside, off the dining room –
the screened in porch. And it was right after he went up there after he had surgery.
BM:
Hmm. So it was a place he went to recuperate and rest?
JL:
Uh-huh. He loved it! He just loved it. And of course anything he did was for
improvement. Now if that lake will get back up, I will be ever so grateful. And it may.
Because the people who bought it from Scottish Power they can’t pump it anymore. They
used to pump it and pump it upstream (or downstream, whatever you want) on up into
Idaho, to give the farmers more, oh what do I want?
BC:
For irrigation water.
JL:
Yeah, for other chokecherry bushes.
BM:
Oh.
JL:
And they don’t do that anymore. They haven’t run the way -- . Yeah, they used to –
they’d sell the chokecherries all the time. In Garden City you’d go to the stand and buy
chokecherries.
BM:
Huh.
JL:
Take them home and put them in a pot and boil them up – ooh! Good!
BM:
And ate them as what? As a sauce, or [unclear]
JL:
No. Then you strain it and take it and thicken it as a chokecherry jelly or –
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�BM:
Sounds like one of your favorites!
JL:
Oh yeah! Gee it was good!
BM:
Huh. And so you put it on toast, or?
JL:
Yes! Anything you’d put jam on! It was just delicious. And those days are gone! They
just are. I looked out – going up toward Logan out of Garden City – here all this is
subdivided down to that place, that new –
BM:
That new development down there.
JL:
Yeah, whatever that is. And I may not live to see it, but then I may live to see some, but I
guess it’s just going like crazy.
BC:
It is.
JL:
Is it?
BC:
Yeah, I think it’s –
JL:
People are buying it and building and so on.
BM:
And it’s a beautiful place.
JL:
Oh! Of course it is. It’s just lovely. And down to the boat marina.
BM:
Do you remember the refuge? The wildlife refuge on the north end of the lake? Was that
there, or was that yet to be established? When you go past the boat marina and the state
park, and you continue north –
JL:
Yes.
BM:
Towards Montpelier, around the north end is now a National Wildlife Refuge.
JL:
It is?!
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
Well, I don’t know. I’ve driven around the lake and I know people that live there.
BM:
I’m trying to think of the year when that was established. Because I think you would have
been over there.
JL:
Oh, I no doubt would have!
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�BM:
It’s waterfowl and swans.
JL:
It’s beautiful! It’s more at the north end than the south end. Yeah. Yeah, I know where
you mean.
BM:
Because part of the refuge – I’m wondering if you ever swam at this beach on the north
end of the lake called – North Beach State Park? Is that it?
JL:
What is it called?
BM:
The very north end of the beach – by the pump houses.
JL:
Yeah, by the pump house.
BM:
That’s a very popular swimming place.
JL:
Well it is for the people that are up in Montpelier and Paris and St. Charles and so on, but
there are no – there are some hot springs over there too.
BM:
That’s right.
JL:
Yeah and they’ve been there forever because I was a little kid and Mother used to take us
to swim in it!
BM:
At the hot springs?
JL:
Yeah!
BM:
Oh, really?
JL:
So it’s really been there forever.
BC:
Oh.
BM:
That’s a very famous hot springs place. There was a hotel there.
JL:
Yeah. I don’t think – yes, I guess there, but that was really in the 1800s wasn’t it?
BM:
Yes, the late 1800s and 1900s.
JL:
Yeah, I know. But Mom used to take us up there. She didn’t like us to go swimming too
much because she didn’t think it was very clean.
BM:
Um-hmm.
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�JL:
Yeah, I don’t suppose it was. And anyway I don’t know whether there is still swimming
in there or not.
BM:
There are still hot springs back there in that area but the building is gone.
JL:
But the building is gone, so nobody really swims?
BM:
I think only locals who really know it’s there.
JL:
Oh.
BM:
But that is more off the north east corner of the lake.
JL:
That’s right.
BM:
Back towards the Bear River and the mountains then, close to Wyoming?
JL:
Yeah.
BM:
My goodness. You really got around! Holy cow.
JL:
And the Nebeker Ranch, which was big and now the kids are running it again. I don’t
[know] whose it is? Is it Paul? See Dad was partners with all those gentleman. Paul and –
BM:
Um-hmm. Partners in the law firm, you’re saying?
JL:
Uh-huh.
BM:
Right.
JL:
They’re all gone, but their issue is there. And I don’t know who is over in their house. I
know that the gals and boys – or boy and gal – that run the wonderful little stand that do
those little donuts – ummm. [Licking her lips]
[Laughing]
BM:
Wait, what donuts are these?
JL:
Uh, they just fry them right there. They are just little things like that. And oh boy! Are
they good! I want to go out and get them. And then they also – they had some, they
showed it to me anyway, chokecherry. But that is gone – that day and era. And you
know, that’s kind of too bad.
BC:
Yeah, it is.
JL:
I feel sorry about that. I used to pick them.
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�[Tape 2 of 2: A]
BM:
Tape 2, side 2[1].
JL:
Yes.
BM:
Here with Janet Quinney Lawson and we’re continuing with our Bear Lake stories.
So he still sails up there? Peter?
JL:
Yes! And his kids; you know Peter’s kids are getting big! He married and he got these
two – after he was divorced from [?] and he remarried. And he has two little kids – three
and five. And that’s pretty little. They come up. They come up for a week or ten days and
they just love it and we love having them.
BM:
Oh, I bet!
JL:
And it’s the way it should be used.
BM:
Now are they swimmers as well as sailors?
JL:
Oh yes! Sure are. Is the Bear Lake monster for real?
BM:
Ah! You remember the Bear Lake monster?
JL:
Oh sure! [Laughing]
BM:
Tell us about that.
JL:
I don’t –
BM:
I actually have that in my notes as one of the myths or legends about –
JL:
Yeah, it is.
BM:
So what did you hear about it?
JL:
It’s exactly it – that it would come out and you better mind your p’s and q’s or it would
get you! And it was usually at dusk or after.
BM:
Uh-huh. What did it look like?
JL:
I don’t know! It sort of was large and it sort of had a long neck that would recoil in I
guess and just its head would be there; or it would be out standing up. What’s he got
here?
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�[Reading] Is the Bear Lake monster for real?
Did I give you one of these?
BM:
No, that’s fine, you can keep that.
JL:
Don’t you want one?
BM:
Nope, that’s fine. You can keep that.
JL:
I’ve got more.
BM:
That’s okay. On the monster, have you told your new grandchildren about this? Peter’s
children?
JL:
Yeah, Peter’s. Uh-huh, two little fellows.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
Um-hmm.
BM:
So they know about the Bear Lake monster?
JL:
Oh they do! And they’re sure they saw it. And as a matter of fact sometimes, you know,
the 4th of July or 24th some boats get together and make a Bear Lake monster out of it. Oh
yeah, it’s fun.
BM:
Well you know I also wondered if you fished there because there are fish in the lake.
JL:
Yeah, but they’re trash fish usually, like the sucker. They’re no good eating, they’re
nasty. Yeah you can go and if you’re very patient and want to do it. The trout you just
can’t catch, but gradually I think it will restore itself.
BM:
Um-hmm.
BC:
What about your father? Did he fish at all?
JL:
Oh yes! He was a great fisherman. Not really so much there, but yeah. But he fished
there, sure. But it just didn’t yield anything but carp and sucker. They were so stupid you
could catch them in a net.
BM:
Wow. When you talk about Bear Lake – that’s a summer place and you’re a skier so
you’re coming down here to the Salt Lake City front – where was Beaver Mountain with
the development of that ski resort when you were a young child?
JL:
It wasn’t.
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�BM:
It wasn’t there.
JL:
No. That area was called Beaver Mountain. But I remember when it opened.
BM:
You do?
JL:
And I remember the people – I can’t tell you now, I just can’t – who opened it.
BM:
Were those the Seeholzers?
JL:
Yes, maybe.
BM:
Okay.
JL:
Maybe.
BM:
And so, how old were you when that [Beaver] opened?
JL:
I was probably 14 or 15 I think, because I raced up there.
BM:
Oh you did!
JL:
Yeah. And it wasn’t anything like it is now. I mean you have to go back up in, well that
wasn’t like that. It was, seems to me, you just go off the road and go on up.
BM:
Um-hmm. Did it have a tow lift?
JL:
Well, actually yeah it did, it had a tow. But it wasn’t developed really, [back] then it had
a single chair lift. I think it still does perhaps.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
I don’t know; I haven’t been up to it. I’m very naughty about that.
BM:
It’s gotten pretty spiffy.
JL:
I guess it really, really has and I guess it’s just wonderful skiing!
BM:
Um-hmm. And the Seeholzer family still has the operation.
JL:
The rights? They do? My word!
BM:
And it’s grown. So you raced there as a child?
JL:
Uh-huh.
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�BM:
Downhill ski racing.
JL:
Uh-huh. And giant slalom, we did that there too. And we did slalom; yeah, we did all of
them.
BM:
Were they also jumping up there?
JL:
Not really.
BM:
No?
JL:
No, the jumping was mostly down here, up at Ecker Hill. [Ecker Hill is in Wasatch
County] I’ve got some pictures that Peter [Lawson] has restored (and maybe some of
them are up at the University, I don’t know) of the jumping days with Alf and Sverre and
Corey [Engen]. Now they’re all gone. I think, to my knowledge though, Alf’s wife
Evelyn is still alive. I’m not sure, but I believe she is.
BM:
This is Evelyn Engen?
JL:
Uh-huh.
BM:
I’m not sure. I don’t know the name. I know the name Alf.
JL:
Uh-huh, he was the older brother of the three. There was Alf and then there’s Sverre and
Corey. And they all moved over here gradually. And then their parents moved over here.
[Mrs. Engen moved to Utah, but her husband was deceased.] And she was Alf’s wife
(she’s a pain in the butt! That’s not nice, but anyway she is.) She lives on an old farm. I
think it’s an old farm. Maybe it’s not, maybe it’s out on the – I don’t know. It’s out there
in one of those condominium developments.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
And I’ve seen her on occasions at some gatherings skiing, but I haven’t seen her since the
last ski archives up there.
BM:
At the university?
JL:
No. Up at the – what do they call it? That what I’m trying to think.
BC:
The University of Utah Ski Archives?
JL:
Yeah, that’s what it is. And that’s called something – I can’t think what it’s called. [The
Alf Engen Ski Museum in Park City.]
BM:
Is it Ski Meister? Or is that a magazine?
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�JL:
Maybe it is.
BM:
Hmm. But they celebrate each year, and that’s what you’ve been back to? Hmm.
JL:
I think Alf’s book or Corey’s book – was it Corey or Alf or Sverre? Maybe Sverre’s
book. Over there, can you see it?
BC:
Yeah. There’s one called First Tracks?
JL:
Yeah, that’s the endurance.
BC:
Yeah. Let’s see –
JL:
He’s gone.
BC:
The Wasatch Mountains –
JL:
They’ve all died but me. And as my Dad said, “You’re too ornery.”
[Laughing]
BM:
So you’ve skied with all of them?
JL:
Yeah.
BM:
That was part of your –
JL:
bringing up.
BM:
Gee.
JL:
Oh yeah. I skied, as I say, when you put the inner tube around your boot and binding and
that was at Ecker Hill, that’s where we went. So of course it was open. Unless you skied,
and we did later on and I did too. You know, you would drive up Silver King Mine and
hike up and over and drop down into Brighton and stay at [?]; Mrs. Howardy would run
that. The only way you could get in was to ski in.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
God it was fun!
BM:
And the boys skied with the girls and you kept up with everybody? The boys kept up
with you?
JL:
Oh, sure! Some girls – oh, Jenny Gurnsey, we were not best friends. Dear Aunt Em. I
wonder who lives in that house now?
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�BM:
In Logan?
JL:
Aunt Em’s.
BM:
Um-hmm. The Eccles House in --
JL:
Not Bammie’s, but Aunt Em’s on the corner. Don’t know.
BM:
I don’t know.
JL:
She had an open house, somebody at Bammie’s house, and had it open and I couldn’t get
there for some reason and I wanted to. So I’ll have to call one day and see if I can go and
see her. I did a lot of growing up in that house.
BM:
In Logan?
JL:
You bet.
BC:
In the summers or all year round?
JL:
Mostly the summers. Well, we used to have winter there, Christmas.
BC:
Oh.
JL:
And Bammie would put one of the Christmas trees in the bay window on the second
floor.
BM:
I bet that was beautiful.
JL:
Oh, it was wonderful!
BM:
And so you went up from Salt Lake to Logan for Christmas?
JL:
Yeah, and stayed. Bammie had a whole house of people. Mother was there and of course
Aunt Marie was there but she lived in her own house I guess. I used to get so mad at her,
but it was George’s fault, he would just spoil her rotten, you know. All she did was feed
the kid, whichever one she had at the moment, and he would bring the baby to her.
Honestly! What a woman.
BM:
So these Christmases, this was an annual thing? You went up every Christmas?
JL:
Yeah, yeah. Until Bammie decided she wouldn’t stay there anymore. She went down to
California. And then we quit going up there and did Christmas at home. But Bammie
stayed there and then eventually of course we moved Bam down, moved her into the
Mayflower apartments [in Salt Lake City] where she died.
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�BM:
Can I ask you what Logan was like at that time?
JL:
Well, it had the streetcar, you know? It went clankety, clankety, clank. And it had
Bammie’s electric car. “Clear, here comes Mrs. Eccles, clear the way!” And Bammie – it
had enough juice in it to take her from her house to Aunt Marie’s. Now that was a pretty
good haul up. Back wasn’t bad, but up was –
BC:
Now is Aunt Marie [Marie Eccles Caine] the same – below the university they call the
Caine House?
JL:
The old – yeah, yup.
BM:
So right on the corner of 500 North –
JL:
And – what is that?
BM:
600?
JL:
It’s called “Something Way” or –
BC:
Yeah.
BM:
It goes right up past Old Main, they could probably see the Tower from their house.
JL:
Oh yeah, they lived directly down, actually.
BM:
So you went in an electric car from you aunt’s over there –
JL:
It was fun!
BM:
Oh my goodness, that’s interesting.
JL:
It was very sad and I didn’t know it, but Uncle Spence sold Bammie’s [car] (it was the
second one she had too, it was in perfect condition). He sold it to the scrap yard.
BM:
Sold the car?
JL:
Yes!
BM:
Why did he do that?
JL:
Huh?
BM:
Why did he do that?
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�JL:
Because the War was on and they needed it I guess. And Bammie wasn’t there to drive it.
I don’t think she was. Was she there? I don’t remember when she moved to Salt Lake.
BM:
So this would have been the 1940s then when he sold the car?
JL:
Yeah.
BM:
Hmm.
JL:
There’s a statue.
BM:
There you go, that’s the sculpture.
JL:
Then there’s that.
BM:
Oh!
JL:
That’s a miniature of the one that’s at Westminster.
BM:
Okay.
JL:
But it’s life-size; you can sit in a couch beside it. I was trying to think: who is that? I used
to go down to California and stay and visit Em and Noni.
BM:
Now who is Noni?
JL:
She’s the younger sister and she’s always lived in California, in Berkeley. Just over
almost to Piedmont.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
And Em – after Uncle Lee died – she moved down there and she lived with Noni until
Noni finally kicked her out. Here’s my mother. That’s Mother, and that’s Marriner and
that’s Ellen.
BM:
Ellen?
JL:
Bammie’s next-to-the-youngest.
BM:
Oh, okay.
JL:
And Merrill.
BM:
And you remember them very well?
JL:
Oh yeah! Sure, I stayed with them.
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�BM:
Did they ever come over here?
JL:
Oh yeah.
BM:
And to Bear Lake?
JL:
Um-hmm.
BM:
So you had company there quite often?
JL:
Um-hmm.
BC:
And that’s Marriner.
JL:
Yes.
BC:
Do you remember him at all when he was Secretary of the Treasury?
JL:
Sure. I was back in Washington with him. I used to stay with him because I was in
barracks and I didn’t want to be in the barracks very much. So Uncle Marriner would say,
“Well come on; you come stay here if you want to. And just check in and out so I kind of
know what and how.” So I stayed at the [?] [whispering]. It’s kind of posh! It was very
posh because the other ones were over in Arlington. The barracks were just over the
Potomac River.
BC:
So were you in the Navy, or?
JL:
Yeah. I was in the Navy and I loved it! And I loved being in the Navy. And the only
reason that I got out was because I married Fred and I got pregnant purposely. Because I
couldn’t get out, I just couldn’t do it. Then I got pregnant and then I could. No reason I
couldn’t have stayed in.
BM:
Hmm. When were you – what time period was this when you were back east?
JL:
In the Navy before? Who’s that? Who’s that?
BM:
Is that a bird?
JL:
No, well I guess. I’m looking just over the fence and I think probably it’s the gardeners.
They moved that house.
BC:
Oh did they?
JL:
Uh-huh.
BM:
Beautiful tree.
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�BC:
So did you join the Navy then?
JL:
Yeah.
BC:
And that was for World War II, or?
JL:
When I got to be 21 I joined the Navy. I couldn’t before that, because my dad wouldn’t
give his permission and I had to have my parents [permission]. So finally I got to be 21
and bang! I joined it.
BM:
So how did you tell them that you joined? Your parents?
JL:
Very terrified.
[Laughing]
BM:
Did you do it face-to-face or did you do it by phone?
JL:
No, I did it face-to-face.
BM:
Ooh.
JL:
Boy Dad! Mother I didn’t care about; but Dad was going to be a case. And he was! He
practically went to Marriner to tell him to get me out of this thing. And Marriner said, “I
can’t do that!” Because he was still Head of the Federal Reserve back in Washington.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JL:
So there I was off to [?] college and boot camp. And then when I got out of boot camp I
went to Washington D.C. with a Bureau of Ships and that was great because it was a very
closed, small, what they call a “Blue Seal” office. Nothing ever went out of that office.
Everything was burned, had to be. We camouflaged all the battle ships and they would
send [?] to them. And we would take them and put them on a paper and scale them down
to – and put them on a paper and then put ships out there to see how the ships . If they
looked like ships something, blah, blah, or whether we would camouflage them so they
didn’t look like the ones that they were. It was fun, I like it. As a matter of fact I liked the
Navy. I really did. I had a great time. My father and mother had conniptions. But I was
21! And I just did it. I must have been a terror for them to raise and I think probably I
was. Dave wasn’t here, my brother. He was in Australia. No, was he in Australia? Yeah, I
guess he was; in the Army.
BM:
So he couldn’t even be here to back you up?
JL:
No, no. After I got out of the Navy I met – through the S.O.S. or S.S.?
BC:
S.S. I think.
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�JL:
Yeah. And I got some kind of – not because of who I was but because of who I had been
in the skiing department and in the skiing mainly and so on, they wanted this run. And
now he or she is a wave and so on. We had fun. I had special [?] that brought me into the
studio and oh! Yeah, had a good time. I like it but I couldn’t stay in when I got pregnant.
Which I probably wouldn’t have gotten pregnant except that’s the only way and Fred had
been transferred to Ohio from D.C. and so the only way I could get there was to get
pregnant and get out of the Navy honorably. I did! Everything just went swell!
BM:
And you came back here?
JL:
No, I joined Fred in Dayton, Ohio where Rick was born. And that was something else
again. I thought Dad would have a fit! And I said, now never mind, I did this deliberately
and I’ll probably have another one deliberately. So anyway, I had the baby and stayed in
the Navy – or stayed in until Fred was released – and then we checked out and came here.
He’d never been here before. He’d never been west of the Mississippi I don’t think; poor
old guy.
BC:
How did you meet Fred?
JL:
In the Army-Navy picnic. Creek Park is where I met him. Although that was tough
because he was an officer and I wasn’t. And that made things a little tough sometimes.
But we managed, much to my father’s chagrin. I think he probably – what would he have
me – well I would have stayed in school I guess. I didn’t ever graduate from the
university. Because I was busy in the Navy and I did love it though. I really did. And it
was very good for me to do. And I was in a wonderful office in Washington, on
Constitution Avenue, in the Blue Seal Room. And that meant that upon opening and
closing that it was always locked. You couldn’t get in there unless you were admitted by
somebody who was your --. We were only about eight or 10 people in this particular
department. And we would camouflage the ships and put them on a board and look at
them out here and see if we had camouflaged out a stack; to change what kind of class it
was in. We burned everything, had to be burned. Nothing went out of that office.
BM:
Do you remember where you were when the War ended?
JL:
Sure. I was in Dayton, Ohio.
BM:
Had you had your baby then.
JL:
Yeah.
BM:
Rick was already born?
JL:
Yeah, Rick got himself up and born. An OB/GYN, who apparently was a very
outstanding and very something else – OB/GYN doctor – Kirschbaum, I think that was
his name. And boy, he took such good care of me. He thought this was the biggest joke
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�on the Navy he’d ever heard. And so Dr. Kirschbaum, who was an outstanding,
apparently OB/GYN out of Chicago – he’s the one that delivered me.
BM:
Hmm.
JL:
Hardly got there in time. I didn’t have much trouble. Oh, I didn’t. Mother was very busy
trying on hats until Dad I thought was absolutely going to croak her.
BM:
She was trying on hats while you were –
JL:
In labor.
BM:
Oh!
JL:
Getting ready to go to the hospital. Because you know, where we lived Patterson Village
was a long way from – well, I guess it was at least a half an hour or 45 minutes away
from Wright Field where you had to go to have this baby. It was funny.
Did you see that? Emma Eccles Jones: Educator, Teacher, Friend. (6 March 1898—29
March 1991.) [From Utah State Magazine, Vol. 14 No. 2; Summer 2008]
BC:
They published this for the dedication the other day.
JL:
Yeah.
BC:
Yeah. Somebody told me about it, but I hadn’t seen one yet.
JL:
Well, that’s it. I won’t give it to you, but you can probably go and get one.
BC:
I will. We’ll put it in our [Special Collections]. I work in the library, so we’ll put it in our
[library at USU.]
JL:
Absolutely. I think Rick wrote a lot of it.
BM:
Well, we’re just about at the end of our tape. So is there anything else that you would like
to add?
JL:
No. What do you want to add?
BM:
Well.
JL:
Or ask? If I can fulfill –
BM:
Well you know one question that we were really interested in, that you talked a little bit
about in terms of so many changes going on at Bear Lake. And Bear Lake and Logan
Canyon – you mentioned the road and the bridges. Are there any other significant
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�changes or policies that you can think of that impacted the lake or the canyon while you
were going over there?
JL:
Well.
BM:
Or even events. Like the Depression, or civil rights, or anything like that?
JL:
I went – where was it? You know, it’s about that road that goes up, up, up and comes to
where you turn off to go – what is that road called? The part of it?
BM:
Is it the winding part of the road?
JL:
No. It’s the one that goes up from the river, over the bridge – they had to redo the bridge
like completely.
[Tape 2 of 2: B]
Yeah. Gee that was a fun one. You know when you go at the top there on that Denny’s
dugway and then turn to get out, you used to go out and around on that point. You can
probably still see the road. And mother was driving this 7 passenger Buick you know it’s
just a big hunk of machinery. That was the climb. And you know, you didn’t just sort of
flip up there like you do now. It was fun though.
Mother was quite adventuresome. I don’t know, I guess she went up to the store and tell
Joan she was there. You didn’t go over Evanston because from Evanston over was dirt
road. All through Woodruff, Randolph up the canyon, it was all dirt.
BM:
And you said you came then in most recent years, you came up through Evanston. Where
you going through Woodruff and Randolph at Deseret Ranch?
JL:
Yes.
BM:
Was that a place that you were in?
JL:
Yeah we didn’t go into it. No, we stayed on the road that went past the horse racing and
we went up there and then we just zoomed and kept going until we got to Big Junction.
From there you can go to Jackson Hole or Bear Lake.
BM:
Is that Sage Creek Junction?
JL:
Yeah, it’s Sage Creek Junction. And yeah, it’s longer but well I just haven’t driven in
Logan forever. I was asking somebody the other day how it was. Could I get through the
canyon or couldn’t I? Cause I was thinking about going up that way.
BC:
I think it’s pretty good right now. I don’t think there’s much going on now. So you better
do it this year because they might start all over again. [Meaning road construction.]
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�JL:
Yeah it I otta go. Why didn’t they leave it alone?!
BM:
Cause there’s lots of skiers and lots of folks going up and down. And they are in a hurry.
JL:
Well, do you think that they are to get up skiing to the meadows there, is it a lot faster
now with the road?
BM:
It is. It’s a lot faster. You know 10 years I’ve been here, but it is a lot faster from what
people tell me. It’s still a beautiful ride.
JL:
I know. It is. That’s the prettiest. The other one is just interesting kind of. Getting up,
over and dropping down.
BM:
But it gets wicked in the wintertime with the weather.
JL:
Well, yes it is. I guess it’s a hard road to maintain. They only open it up to the ski area. I
don’t think they open it up and over the top and down do they?
BM:
They do keep it open now.
JL:
Do they?!
BM:
So you remember a time when the road used to just be opened to the top?
JL:
Yeah.
BM:
Hmmm. And did they gate it?
JL:
No… they didn’t gate it. I don’t know. You just knew it wasn’t plowed. That’s how you
knew. You came to a grinding halt.
BM:
And the last place you could get to was what? Beaver Mountain?
JL:
Mm Hmmm. Yeah.
BM:
That’s a truck route now, Janet, with a lot of trucks that go through there pretty much
year round.
JL:
What? Bear Lake?
BM:
Yeah.
JL:
Oh. Over the new road?
BM:
Yeah.
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�JL:
Oh I’m sure. There was a great increase even before they did this new deal as it started
down. What was it called? Denny’s dugway. I wonder if it’s… is it significantly better?
BM:
They’ve taken some of the corners, they windy parts out.
BC:
Probably the big thing was they’ve built in a lot of passing lanes, so that you know, if you
had a recreational vehicle that was going slower, they wouldn’t back it up as much. So
now you can get around some of the slower vehicles. It probably saves you 15 minutes.
JL:
Honestly, who don’t go that way, go the way that’s not pretty just go to Montpelier
[Idaho]; that’s where people want to go I guess. Course Montpelier is a train …
BC:
Train town.
JL:
And there’s nothing in St. Charles. And there’s nothing in Paris really. And I don’t know
what they could build there. Or what they would have there.
BM:
I think mostly the change now is just homes that are going in. Summer homes and some
are winter ski homes. But mostly just homes because some the ranches that were there are
much smaller or gone. But more, more homes.
JL:
Between Montpelier and Lake Town?
BM:
Between Paris, St. Charles, and then down I don’t know what the next town would be,
but along that side. Little by little…
JL:
They are encroaching on my property and I don’t like it.
BM:
Well, Janet, thank you so much for chatting with us this afternoon.
JL:
Oh sure! I hope I’ve done something good. Well, if it isn’t right, or you need more
whatever, I will be aboard.
BM:
Alright. Well, thank you very much for having us today. We appreciate it.
JL:
I hoping I could get you something?
BM:
You know I might take a glass of water now. Thank you.
JL:
Um hum.
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�
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<a href="http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/42">http://digital.lib.usu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/LoganCanyon/id/42</a>
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2013-01-17
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Title
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Janet Quinney Lawson interview, 28 April 2008, and transcription
Description
An account of the resource
Janet Quinney Lawson talks about her childhood memories at her family's summer home at Bear Lake. She also talks of her childhood memories at family members' homes in Cache Valley, Utah. She talks a lot about skiing and sailing on/at the Wasatch Front, Utah, and in Cache Valley, and Bear Lake.
Creator
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Lawson, Janet Quinney, 1922-2008
Contributor
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Cole, Bradford R.
Middleton, Barbara
Subject
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Lawson, Janet Quinney, 1922-2008--Interviews
Lawson, Janet Quinney, 1922-2008--Family
Quinney, S. Joe (Seymour Joseph), b. 1893
Bear Lake (Utah and Idaho)
Boats and boating--Bear Lake (Utah and Idaho)
Vacation homes--Bear Lake (Utah and Idaho)--Anecdotes
Skis and skiing--Utah
Roads--Utah--Logan Canyon
Ricks Spring (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Utah State University. Forestry Field Station Camp
Utah State University. Janet Quinney Lawson Building
Lawson, Janet Quinney, 1922-2008--Friends and associates--Anecdotes
Bear Lake Valley (Utah and Idaho)--Description and travel
Bear Lake Monster
Monsters--Bear Lake (Utah and Idaho)--Folklore
Skis and skiing--Utah--Logan Canyon--History
Beaver Mountain (Utah)
Logan (Utah)
United States. Navy--Women
Automobile driving--Utah--Logan Canyon
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Oral histories
Interviews
Spatial Coverage
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Bear Lake (Utah and Idaho)
Bear Lake County (Idaho)
Cache County (Utah)
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Garden City (Utah)
Rich County (Utah)
Parley's Canyon (Utah)
Salt Lake County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Salt Lake City (Utah)
Salt Lake County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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1930-1939
1940-1949
1950-1959
20th century
Language
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eng
Source
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 4 Fd. 2
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Inventory for the Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection can be found at: <a href="http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php">http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php</a>
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of the USU Fife Folklore Archives Curator, phone (435) 797-3493
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Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection
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Sound
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audio/mp3
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FolkColl42bx4fd2JanetQuinneyLawson
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28 April 2008
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2008-04-28
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Logan Canyon Reflections
-
http://highway89.org/files/original/6ecd1a5239f78841f0e972568bea2206.mp3
4ac23eb454cb20494fd3826dcac56b25
http://highway89.org/files/original/bf96d46ed29a408de96e43cb3f0580b0.pdf
25ba4986f127c99e294c9cd2e1ae1ed1
PDF Text
Text
LAND USE MANAGEMENT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
John Neuhold and Ron Goede
Place of Interview: John Neuhold’s home, Logan, Utah
Date of Interview: Sunday, 22 February 2009; 9 a.m.
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Barbara Middleton
Barbara Middleton
Recording Equipment:
Radio Shack, CTR-122
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Susan Gross
Barbara Middleton; Randy Williams (July 2011); reviewed by
John Neuhold (July 2011)
Brief Description of Contents: John Neuhold and Ron Goede discuss their experiences at USU
Summer Camp (and the skills and camaraderie they gained there) and other experiences in their
education, including those with the GI Bill; the Mossback group; and the politics of land use
management.
Reference:
BM = Barbara Middleton (Interviewer; Interpretive Specialist, Environment &
Society Dept., USU College of Natural Resources)
JN = John Neuhold
RG = Ron Goede
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with
brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 2: A]
BM:
I’m going to mark the tape here so we know what we’re doing.
We’re at John Neuhold’s house here on Island Drive and it is Sunday, February 22, 2009.
We’re here with John Neuhold and also Ron Goede. The purpose of our talk this morning
is to discuss a little bit about some of their memories of Forestry Camp (Field Camp,
Summer Camp; it goes by a lot of different names) with Utah State University.
Let’s start off with John – your arrival at Field Camp and some of your first memories of
that.
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�JN:
My arrival at the Utah State Agricultural College School of Forest, Range and Wildlife
Management Forestry Camp was in June 15, 1950. We had a huge group; well over 100
undergraduate students were participating in the summer camp. Most of them were
World War II veterans (like me). It was really an interesting group. The camp itself was
composed of a central building (which was basically the mess hall and the primary
meeting room); the second permanent building involved some dormitory space, but was
mostly occupied by the instructors (the professors in the program). The next two building
were World War II Quonset huts that housed the balance of us in double-decker bunks.
When I got there on the 16th of June we had a lot of cold weather still; there was snow on
the ground. The classes started (I don’t remember exactly what day the 16th was – I think
it was a Friday), but the classes started the following Monday, at any rate. The group was
big enough that it was divided up into three sub-groups, and each sub-group went into a
specific specialty headed by one of the professors.
The professors that were involved at that time were Dr. Ted Daniels, Ray Moore (who
was at that time still had not had his doctorate, but after World War II he became a
professor here), Bill Sigler (who headed the wildlife program), George Kilker was also
involved in that as part of the wildlife program, Bill Heldy did the aquatic stuff and
George did the terrestrial wildlife stuff. Art Smith was involved, and he was in the area of
range management. Wayne Cook was also involved, he was range management. That I
think was basically the basic faculty group that handled the program.
BM:
And Ted Daniels would’ve been in Forestry?
JN:
Ted was Forestry, so was Ray Moore.
BM:
Okay.
RG:
Was Art Smith working for Fish and Game?
JN:
Well he had a joint appointment.
RG:
Like Phil Urness.
JN:
Like Phil Urness, yeah. His salary was paid by Fish and Game, but he held tenure as a
professor at the university.
BM:
So was that a cooperative appointment?
JN:
Um-hmm.
RG:
Do they still have that John?
JN:
Yeah they do.
RG:
I don’t even know who it is anymore.
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�JN:
No, I don’t remember who it is either now.
BM:
And that was Art Smith that had that?
JN:
That was Art Smith that had it, yeah. He was followed by Phil Urness. Then when Phil
died – I don’t know who took over –
RG:
Charlie Jensen was in there for a while.
BM:
Now you mentioned a connection with World War II – these folks coming out of the war
(you said that specifically for Ray). Was that typical for any of these other folks that you
mentioned?
JN:
Well let’s see. Bill Sigler was a lieutenant (kept two bars) on the sub-chaser during World
War II and then was assigned later on to the formation of the United Nations in San
Francisco. Ted Daniels was not in the military, but Ted (before he joined the faculty here
and graduated from Berkley) he ran ferry boats in San Francisco Bay. He was a captain
on one of the ferry boats there. Ray Moore, Wayne Cook both were in the military – I
don’t recall exactly what branch of the service they were in. Art Smith was a captain in
the Army; George Kilker was not in the military he was a “4 Fer.” I think that pretty well
did all of it. Most of them were returned veterans though – most of the students. So you
know it was –
RG:
Everybody was a veteran.
JN:
Yeah, it was a brotherhood actually, when you get right down to it. It was a very informal
relationship between student and professor. It was really a lot of fun.
BM:
Now you said, “a 4Fer.” What is that?
JN:
A “4 Fer” – you were excused from the military for physical reasons.
BM:
Okay.
RG:
One A was the top – you were most vulnerable if you were classified as “1A” and all the
way to a “4F” that was exempt.
BM:
So it was a range. That’s kind of interesting because is this where the GI Bill comes into
play?
JN:
Oh yeah. Virtually all of the students were supported by the GI Bill. That was one of the
– I wish to heck we would have something like this going again. It really stimulated our
economy – this is what made our economy bloom like it did. Getting a lot of the people
an education that they would never have had the chance to get before. Then they
managed to go on through and become professionals in a lot of the resource management
agencies. For a long time throughout the [19]‘50s and into the ‘60s (if not throughout the
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�entire ‘60s up to the ‘70s), Utah State University was the prime source of personnel for
the federal land management agencies; and a lot of the state agencies. The class that I was
in, for example (in that summer camp), we had [counting to himself] three people that
became directors of Fish and Game departments in states around the country. At least
three: Bud Phelps –
RG:
Harold Wilson.
JN:
Harold was later on, he wasn’t in that particular class.
RG:
No, not in that class.
JN:
Don Smith, Jack Hammond – he became director of Ohio and then later on of New
Hampshire I think. Anyhow, there were a bunch like that for the state organizations.
RG:
Was Tom Trelease part of that?
JN:
He became Chief of Fisheries in Nevada. Don Andriano
became Chief of Fisheries here
in Utah. You know, the people in that particular class (they’re all retired or dead now),
they all got into leadership positions.
BM:
Now they’re going to places that are outside of Utah –
JN:
Oh yeah!
BM:
Were they also coming from outside of Utah?
JN:
Oh yeah, yes I’ll say! There were very few Utahans in that group, actually.
BM:
Hmmm.
RG:
Yeah, natural resources in general were primarily non-resident.
BM:
So what was the pull for Utah State and who were the other competitors at the time?
JN:
The other competitors at the time: Michigan State University –
RG:
Montana was pretty –
JN:
Montana was; Oregon State. In the fisheries area, University of Washington – they were
mostly marine fisheries.
RG:
Missouri had one too.
JN:
Missouri did, yeah, but it didn’t produce as much as some of the others. Oh, Penn State!
That was one of the major –
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�RG:
That’s where –
JN:
Yeah, that’s your organization, yup.
BM:
That’s kind of interesting to me that there’s a much smaller range of universities to
choose from at that time.
JN:
Oh yeah!
BM:
And Utah State is getting such a national presence, as well as a national student body.
RG:
It was known – I got guys to come to Utah State from – Mel Stein who was the director
of the Nebraska Fish and Game – when I decided I wanted to do it I wanted to talk to him
and went to his office and talked to him about if he had ideas where I might go.
BM:
So what was going on here? Were people just so well known? Were the issues that were
being looked at Utah State so critical in terms of the whole national picture? Why such a
presence?
RG:
I think it had to do with the people that started these programs.
JN:
Yeah actually there was a big transition from a political system to these various positions
as Game Wardens (for example), and as Foresters. Well you had to meet certain criterion
to get into the Forest Service which meant you had to have a bachelor’s degree in
Forestry.
RG:
In Utah; well in a lot of those states also got out of the patronage system and it went to
like here, you had to be a professional to be director.
JN:
That came later on, actually.
RG:
It still was a political appointment, but they had to appoint it to a professional.
JN:
Yeah, that was changed under the Leavitt administration.
RG:
That was when [Joe] Valentine became director [Utah Wildlife Resources]; I think he
was the first one that was not a professional.
BM:
What was the nature of these people in terms of this “patronage” idea? These were the
people that lived in the area, knew the landscape and just slipped into these positions?
JN:
Basically that’s what it was.
BM:
But good land experience?
JN:
Not necessarily.
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�RG:
Not necessarily.
JN:
Depended upon how high up you were in the political party.
RG:
I think they did that right at the time, that’s how they got Joe Valentine in there.
JN:
Yeah.
RG:
They actually had to change the law.
JN:
They had to change the law –
RG:
[inaudible] would be director.
JN:
That was the Leavitt administration that did that. And Ron was responsible for getting
Leavitt all hot and bothered about it.
[Laughing]
RG:
I brought levity into the whole thing.
BM:
Well you know, that must be interesting though for that transition because you have
people put in place that may or may not have the experience, and then you guys are
coming out of – you and a bunch of others – are coming out of these programs with
professional training, exposure, and what sounds like a lot of field experience. What was
that transition like?
JN:
It was interesting. Bill McConnell and I were the first two professionally trained Fishery
Biologists in the Division of Wildlife Resources. We started a program that basically took
hold. Harold Crane became the director while I was working for the Division, and up
until then it was Perry Egan was the director. He was a banker and he turned out to be a
very good leader. He was all for getting professional things started in the Division of
Wildlife Resources (or the Fish and Game Department as it was known at that time).
RG:
But they had to hire good people in order [inaudible]. You can be a good leader but
they’ve got to surround themselves with good people.
BM:
Right.
JN:
And that was one of his strengths; he was really a neat guy and I really enjoyed working
for him.
RG:
J Perry Egan
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�JN:
J Perry Egan – or as his wife referred to it, she was not one of the Irish Eagan. She had a
French background and she pronounced her name as E-gan! [Laughing] And she insisted
upon that, “Egan!”
RG:
The Eagan Hatchery is named after J Perry Eagan.
BM:
And where is that?
RG:
Bicknell.
BM:
Bicknell?
JN:
Bicknell.
RG:
There’s another Egan up here in Richmond that built one of these barns. That was one of
the body guards of Brigham Young. So there’s quite a history there. I don’t think Perry
was tied up with that group of Egans. Do you think he was?
JN:
He probably was, yeah. Anyhow, it was a period of transition. Working in that system,
you know most of the people that we worked with they have only two professionally
trained fishery biologists: Dale Jones, Jay Udy and Bud Phelps – they all came on but
they were on the terrestrial side. The transition was interesting because all of our
fieldwork – we had to interact with these patronage type people holding down regional
and district game warden jobs and that sort of thing. It became pretty chancy at times
because they were very jealous of their prerogatives and they didn’t want these college
kids telling them what to do, you know and so on. So we had to exercise a lot of tact to
get through it. We won most of them over actually, when you get right down to it.
BM:
Do you remember any particular experience with that transition that was interesting?
JN:
Oh yeah. See, one of the programs that I initiated and was leading was doing the lake and
stream survey up in the Uinta Mountains. And we had a CO up there (Guy Bronson, was
that his name, Bronson?) –
RG:
Yeah.
JN:
Man! I’ll tell you – if we didn’t inform him that we were going to be in the area, he’d go
down to the director and complain. We had that kind of stuff coming up from all kinds of
directions. We never did swing him over.
RG:
His son was better.
JN:
His son was better, yeah.
RG:
Quite an artist.
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�JN:
Oh yeah, that’s right. He did a lot of the area –
RG:
A great wildlife artist – Clark Bronson.
BM:
Say the name again?
RG:
Clark.
BM:
Clark?
RG:
Clark Bronson. He was Guy Bronson’s son.
JN:
But you know, we had other guys in the organization like Bit Clark (who became,
actually, regional director), Jess Wynn –
RG:
Jack Rensel.
JN:
Well Jack came on actually after I did.
RG:
Jack was the first actual regional director.
JN:
He was the first regional director.
RG:
He’s the one I suggested you might want to talk to.
JN:
Yeah, as a matter of fact I talked to him yesterday and told him he’d be expecting a call
from you, so. He would be a really good one to talk to.
RG:
Jack’s a first-class guy, I really like him.
BM:
Did any of these people come to field camp? Were they part of the experience at all to
meet any of these agency people?
JN:
No.
BM:
No.
JN:
No.
BM:
So it was strictly professors at that time?
JN:
Strictly professors.
RG:
There was another dimension here though, as far as the existence of the field camp, they
did use the field camp quite often.
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�BM:
Who’s “they”?
RG:
People like the regions and the DWR would have –
JN:
But that was substantially later.
RG:
Yeah, I know, but they used the camp.
JN:
Yeah, they used the camp.
RG:
That’s why I said there was more than just school. The camp served for the in-service
training and that sort of thing. I don’t know what they paid for that, but they used it
because you could stay there; they could be billeted right there, you know.
BM:
I wonder if there was more of a transition later on as that transition eased over time?
JN:
Yeah, there actually was because when J Perry Eagan retired (or he died, actually, on the
job), Harold Crane took over. Harold Crane had a Master’s Degree – a degree from the
University of Utah in Mammalogy. He was really a top notch leader. He had a tendency
to get drunk too often! [Laughing]
RG:
Yeah, he was [inaudible]. He was director when I hired on.
JN:
Yeah. He insisted that anybody that was hired by the Division had to have a Bachelor’s
degree, at least. The only area there was an exception to was in the hatcheries.
RG:
And some of the law enforcement.
JN:
And some of the law enforcement, yeah.
BM:
Why hatcheries?
JN:
Well because it was slop jobs.
RG:
A lot of that was just labor.
BM:
So more “tech” kinds of things?
RG:
Actually, I was the one that started training the hatchery people; so now they have to be
trained and they have to take tests.
JN:
Well actually after Ron took over, most of the hatchery people that ended up being hired
had degrees. Those that didn’t he ended up training.
BM:
And when is that transition? What’s the timeline there?
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�JN:
Oh, it took a long time. My experience started in the [19]‘50s and Ron came on in the
early ‘70s (wasn’t it?).
RG:
’66 is when I took –
JN:
Oh, ’66.
RG:
I first came here to school in ’57. But I came back here from Missouri and started to work
in ’66. That’s when I started taking over that part and driving it up to get the professional.
BM:
How long did that transition take – from ’67 when you started – until they started to
really look at hatchery people needing Bachelor’s degrees.
JN:
Well right away actually.
RG:
Yeah, they started looking at it right away. They started the assistant’s job at my place
(like the one job Doug Routledge has now), they would put up the work for me just for a
short while and they would be trained while they worked for me. Then I started
developing the two-week intensive training for all of them. So I ended up teaching
everybody that worked for the state. Now when they apply for the job, they are tested for
that body of knowledge. They have to know how to do those basic things.
JN:
But it was actually until well into the ‘70s that we finally had that all taken care of. So
you know it was a long transition period. A lot of the patronage appointments they went
out by way of attrition; they simply retired. And when they retired they were replaced
with the appropriately educated people.
RG:
Actually when that started working best for me was when Bill Gear became chief when
Don Adriano retired.
JN:
Yeah.
RG:
Because that’s when I told him that I felt that hatcheries needed to be straight line, and
not my staff. They had people supervising the hatcheries that didn’t know anything about
hatcheries. So I wanted them to answer to Salt Lake and the chief of hatcheries, not to the
regional supervisors. I think about the only place in the state in that organization where it
is such a straight line.
JN:
That’s right, it is the only place they have a straight line.
RG:
I told them you’ve got to have them working for professional hatchery people who
understand what the problems are.
JN:
It’s really a lot different.
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�BM:
So just staying on this idea of transitions, before we go out to field camp, it’s a long time
that you both have worked in the industry, as well as the years you’ve had in retirement
to look back and watch the changes. Is there another transitional period that the agency is
going through in terms of the kinds of people or the kinds of training that newer people
have coming in? What’s the difference?
JN:
I think that’s right, first of all the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is dominated by
USU graduates. But that slowly has been changing and you find more BYU graduates in
the organization now than you ever did before. And actually the University of Utah
doesn’t have that many people in it.
RG:
Most of the people I find they hired were all from out of state.
JN:
A lot of out-of-staters, yeah.
BM:
So why did BYU dominate?
JN:
Who knows? They kind of fancy themselves as a natural resource organization down
there, which they were not.
RG:
But I think also that USU (and this is strictly my opinion – John may agree with it, but he
probably won’t).
[Laughing]
JN:
That’s right!
RG:
The University up here started to get away from the idea of management of the resource.
I don’t think they learn the management principles anymore.
JN:
Well, I agree with that.
RG:
And so they’re looking elsewhere, people who do have those management principles.
BM:
Tell me more about that.
RG:
Well we used to have a course, for instance, Principles of Wildlife Management,
Principles of Fisheries Management, and so on. They teach how to actually go out and
manage the resource: the tools that you need. That doesn’t seem to be there anymore.
You’ve got ideas of Fisheries Biology you know, and some of them have some pretty
good training in fisheries biology, but they’re not taught how to go out and manage the
resource.
JN:
No, that’s right. And actually (of course I was involved in teaching a lot of that stuff,
management parts of it), you get right down to the nitty-gritty of what those field
biologists do, for example, when they go out in the field. There is a PR part to that:
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�you’re dealing with wild populations that you’re manipulating one way or another and
you have to get that kind of information too. In the fisheries area, we used to teach
courses in getting information on fisherman usage, which meant core census work. That
required a lot of statistical input. We trained a lot of our students with good statistical
backgrounds (and this was also true in the terrestrial part of it). But you don’t get any of
that anymore. You get a basic understanding of statistics, but not the application of it.
RG:
No. Now they have a computer program to do it for them anyway.
JN:
Yeah. Right. Well we used to have three departments: Department of Range
Management, Department of Forest Management, and Department of Wildlife
Management. The management was basically the application of ecological principles.
And that’s one of the reasons that we became so strong in ecology – actually I became
the first director of the Ecology Center.
RG:
That was one of the chief conservations that you got at the summer camp.
JN:
At the summer camp, right; exactly. One of the interesting things about the summer camp
was when Ted Daniels – one of the instructions that we got from Ted was when you get
out into the forest, stop and listen to the trees. And he really was serious about this. So we
used to sing (how did that go?) –
RG:
[Singing] “I talk to the trees” –
JN:
[Singing] “I talk to the trees, but they won’t listen to me.”
[Laughing] [Dog barking]
BM:
Your dog’s enjoying that too!
JN:
Yeah, I bet!
RG:
I think that’s what she’s saying!
[Laughing]
JN:
One of the things that we got up at summer camp in the forestry area – and actually I
went to work for Ted after summer camp – and that was setting out growth plots in the
forest and measuring the growth of trees and this sort of thing. When I was back at the
University of Wisconsin, my mentor back there was Phil Woodford who was a plant
ecologist and he was doing studies on growth in deciduous forests. I went to work for
him and one of the things that did me good, that made a lot of points with Ted, was the
fact that I could identify trees in the wintertime!
[Laughing]
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�JN:
Hardwood trees.
BM:
Right, right; with few clues.
JN:
With few clues, yeah.
BM:
So with summer camp, what’s the male-female ratio of your students?
JN:
Well, it was almost no females at all. All male at that time, yeah.
RG:
That would be different now.
JN:
It’s quite a bit different now – 50%.
RG:
That was something they just weren’t part of it.
BM:
They weren’t allowed?
RG:
No, they just –
JN:
No, they weren’t interested.
RG:
They would’ve been allowed; they just weren’t interested. I don’t ever remember one, in
fact. They just basically weren’t that interested in the fundamentals of wildlife and
resource management.
BM:
Right.
RG:
Now, they’re probably a very important part of it. I don’t know why that is. I don’t know
why that transition happened, but we’ve got some really good people out there now and a
lot of the leaders are.
BM:
Do you remember when that transition did happen, that women were allowed into -- ?
JN:
Oh, that didn’t occur until the ‘70s.
BM:
Okay.
JN:
That we first started getting a few of our women coming in. And they were mostly in the
graduate area at that time.
RG:
Yeah. Well, there were some practical things there too. If it was just one or two women it
would have been hard to deal with them up there because it was the barracks.
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�JN:
When it finally did happen, they did segregate – the women were in the house that used
to be the faculty. They housed them there, separate from the men. But that didn’t occur
until the ‘70s. And then mostly it was mostly graduate students at that time.
RG:
I saw it as a non-problem. There were some things they had to take care of to make it
work for both, you know, but it wasn’t a problem.
BM:
Sure, um-hmm. Was there any resistance in the transition?
RG:
Not that I know of. John might.
[End Tape 1: A; begin Tape 1: B]
BM:
John Neuhold and Ron Goede on summer camp.
JN:
We didn’t actively go out to recruit women into the program; it was mostly volunteers as
the women came in. And actually the motivation for women to get into the field was
really somewhat different than for men.
RG:
It wasn’t hunting and fishing.
JN:
Yeah, the men were hunters and fisherman, the women were aesthetics – you know, they
were in for the aesthetic part.
RG:
The environmental activists.
JN:
Yeah, they were, yeah. That was the difference. That’s what you’ll find right now, I think
predominately, is that the women in the organization as undergraduates are attracted to it
because (we used to say because of the fuzzy bunnies) –
RG:
Yeah, that’s why they don’t go into fish, because they’re not fuzzy and grow feet.
[Laughing]
JN:
Yeah, not very many of them went into the fisheries – they’re too slimy.
BM:
Okay, so give us an idea of what it was like in a day at field camp.
JN:
It was really interesting. You know, I recall some really interesting things about that. We
get up in the morning (just like in the military), there were barracks (just like in the
military); the first thing was to go into the mess hall and have our breakfast. And our
cook at that time was an interesting guy. It was a man that was suffering from
Parkinson’s. He was a very good cook, but he was suffering from Parkinson’s. And to
watch him prepare food – well, first of all to watch him go into the cook shed and open
the place up – it was always padlocked at night (you couldn’t get in there at night) – he’d
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�come along and he would be shaking like that, like crazy, and he’d bang! hit the thing
every dang time! He never missed.
[Laughing]
JN:
And then you watch him slicing onions – he’d hold an onion in his hand and bonk, bonk,
bonk. He never cut himself!
BM:
It almost sounds like a Monty Python routine!
JN:
[Laughing] Yeah, it was! He was an excellent cook; we always had really good meals.
And then after breakfast we (as I pointed out earlier) we are divided up into three separate
groups and each group went to specific activities for that particular period of time
(usually a week). Let’s see, summer camp lasted two months. It didn’t finish up until
toward the end of August. Everybody had training in Forest Management, Range
Management and in Science [Fisheries] Management. And you progressed on through the
different groups every two-week period, or something like that.
BM:
So like a module you had to go through?
JN:
It was a module, yeah right.
BM:
Now wait – you said, “Forest Management, Range Management and Science”?
JN:
Fisheries Management.
BM:
Fisheries Management, okay.
RG:
You know one part that people don’t think about is that two months – for the average
student – that’s when you made the money to go to school the rest of the year!
BM:
Right.
RG:
So you know, that’s where it really helped to have the GI Bill.
JN:
Yeah.
RG:
That’s what they were getting the money for, they could go do that. But once you’ve got
away from a lot of the GIs it wasn’t so easy for students to deal with that.
BM:
Right. That’s a great point because you’re financially set with the GI Bill and you don’t
have the pressure of the summer work.
Let me ask one more question before this. You went to summer camp once in your entire
career as a student? Or did you go to summer camp every summer?
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�JN:
No, just once.
BM:
Just once, okay. So then other summers you picked up jobs?
JN:
Oh yeah.
RG:
Yeah.
BM:
So what would be an example of where some of the students would go?
JN:
Oh, you’d find jobs in the research area. I found a job, for example, in my second year in
the Forest Service – I worked on the Fish Lake National Forest as a “Recreation
Assistant” which meant that I had a pick honey buckets out of outhouses. I met one of my
girlfriends doing that! As she was sitting on the pot!
[Laughing]
RG:
Them were the good old days! “Excuse me!”
BM:
Oh boy.
JN:
The experiences we had up at summer camp were really quite interesting. For example, in
Forestry you’d be put through a course in field surveying (and that was mostly compass
and chain type work).
BM:
And this is a forestry chain –
JN:
Yeah, it was a metal chain and compass, plane table work, all that kind of stuff. You went
into the kind of rough field surveying that foresters were practicing at that time.
BM:
So that would be like a crew?
JN:
Yeah, we’d go out and we’d line up into work crews. Every crew was responsible for
creating a report –
RG:
Measuring the DBHs and so on.
JN:
Well, that was yeah, when you get out in the forest and do the growth plots, that was all
part of that.
RG:
Do you know what DBH is?
BM:
Can you tell our audience what that is for those people that don’t know?
JN:
Diameter at breast high on trees. (Four and one half feet above the ground) The
responsibility there was to calculate the board feet that was available for lumber.
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�BM:
So you not only got the diameter, you also had to get the –
JN:
The height, yeah.
BM:
Okay. And how did you do the height at that time?
JN:
It was basically using an Abney –
BM:
Okay.
JN:
Abney level.
BM:
Yup. When did clinometers come in? It must have been later on.
JN:
Yeah, we didn’t have them there.
BM:
Okay.
JN:
It was all hand work.
BM:
Okay.
JN:
In the Range Sciences area – our main job there was we would go out and measure – well
first of all identify all the various plants that you’re dealing with like the herbs and
grasses (you concentrate a lot on grasses and herbs; forest type material for livestock and
wildlife). You’d also do plots measuring; learn how to do plots. You’d do something
similar to what you’d do in forestry, but basically it would be much smaller plots,
identify the herbage in that particular area and come up with a measure of usage, for
example. You’d measure such things as pellet counts, deer, this sort of thing.
BM:
Was it also the amount of vegetation as far as –
JN:
Yep; the amount of vegetation. You learn all that kind of stuff. And then in the fisheries
area, that was basically going out and collecting fish with various different collecting
equipment: seines, electro-shocking.
BM:
Okay, wait. Tell us how a seine works for those people that are listening that may not --
JN:
Well a seine is a big net that you have two people –
RG:
A guy on each end.
JN:
A guy on each end and you just simply drag it through the water. Then when you get to
an area where you could beach it, you’d come up and you’d count the species of the
fishes that you had caught.
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�RG:
If that was in a stream that wasn’t always –
JN:
Actually we did a lot of that work. We’d go over to the Bear Lake Bird Refuge and work
on that. But in the streams in the Logan River, for example, or Temple Fork we used
electric shocking.
BM:
Okay.
RG:
I think USU was one of the pioneers in that too.
JN:
Yeah, we were.
BM:
Oh really?
JN:
Yeah, electro-shocking.
BM:
Could you just tell us how you do that? I’ve seen it, but I’m not that familiar with it.
JN:
The science of electric shocking has really developed a long way. At that time we were
using mostly the red current DC shockers. We had a DC generator – great big long cord
that you had two electrodes on (a negative electrode and a positive electrode), and you’d
put those in the stream and the fish that were caught in between them would get shocked
and they’d come to the surface and you’d scoop them up with a net, put them in a bucket
and then you could count them and measure them and do all that sort of stuff.
RG:
And then put them back.
BM:
Then how do you not get shocked?
RG:
You do if you’re not careful! Of course you’re in boots.
JN:
Oh, I’ll tell you. We used to get the guys on that.
RG:
Yeah!
JN:
We had metal buckets. And you’d carry out – if both metal buckets touched the water
while you were in the field [laughing], you’d actually get sparks between the fillings in
your teeth!
RG:
You could even see it happening, “Watch this!”
[Laughing]
RG:
Some of those shockers we were using surplus from the government from old auxiliary
power units!
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�JN:
Yeah, one we had was a big old –
RG:
It would vaporize the room!
JN:
It was an old man shocker, huge, heavy thing. You couldn’t carry it; it had to be in the
back of a pickup truck. You had a great big old wheel (a tenth of a mile of cable, it was a
great big, heavy cable like that you know, that you’d carry around). It was a lot of hard
work!
RG:
But now they’ve got it figured out, the conductivity in the water, and you can really fine
tune; you can also kill them (whip them around so fast that it breaks their back). And then
if you’re using the direct current, the fish will come to the positive electrode, so you can
pretty well figure where they’re going to go. In the alternating current they don’t do that.
BM:
What is the amount of shock based on? Do you have to look at the cubic volume of the
water to know how much power to use?
JN:
Conductivity and the size of the fish, actually. The amount of shock of the animal given
depended on its length: the bigger it is the more shock that it gets.
RG:
The littler ones are harder to shock.
JN:
And of course, if you were carrying two buckets and you put them – the amount of shock
you got was determined between the distance between those two buckets – which meant
that it was getting a hell of a lot more than the fish were getting.
RG:
Yeah.
BM:
It sounds like there is a bit of a rite of passage here with the fisheries.
JN:
It was, yeah! It really was. You learned a lot.
RG:
Well, you could even use that a lot of times if people were upset; the public was upset
about – they’d say “There’s not enough fish in the Logan River, you guys got to put more
in….” You would invite them out to watch you shock and they would see then the fish
just boiling out of there, you know. And that’s all you would need and they would
understand, the fish are out there they just aren’t catching them.
BM:
That’s a great visual. Now were you also looking at the invertebrate population, in terms
of fish?
JN:
Oh yeah! Yeah, that was the other thing. We would have invertebrate collecting devices
that you’d put out in the stream or in a lake. We had the Kemmerer Samplers that you’d –
RG:
Water sampler.
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�JN:
Water samplers.
BM:
Now what is that?
JN:
It’s a water sampler that you could sample water at different depths. And then you’d put
them through a (at that time we had what we referred to as the “Hatch chemical kit”) –
RG:
They still use them.
JN:
Still use them.
BM:
H-A-T-C-H isn’t it? Hatch kit.
RG:
Yeah.
JN:
We’d measure hardness or acidity, total dissolve solids. You know, all of these sorts of
things.
BM:
A lot of chemical analysis of the water?
JN:
Right. Then we had the Peterson bridge – you’d scoop up a part of the bottom and bring
it up to the surface and stick it through screens, and then measure the invertebrates that
you picked up (mostly midge larvae).
RG:
The Kemmerer water bottle he’s talking about is interesting to go to Bear Lake, you can
drop it down to a given depth and send the brass messenger down and it trips it and you
can take a core at that point. And then you can take it up and analyze the water chemistry
from that depth.
BM:
So it stays sealed all the way down until you are at your depth that you want to take a
sample from?
RG:
Yeah.
BM:
And then you trigger to open it, catches that –
RG:
Yeah, that trigger opens it and then you start pulling up and it closes it down.
BM:
Okay.
RG:
There’s a lot of those on the bottom of the lake!
[Laughing, and some inaudible comments]
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�RG:
Yeah, that’s when you realize you have to put a knot on this end so the brass messenger
goes out this way. It’s really funny when you’ll hear something go “boop” and then
you’re, “uh-oh.” [Laughing]
JN:
Then the other thing that we sampled were the invertebrates in streams. And that was
basically using nets (stream nets); you’d kick up the bottom and then measure the
mayflies and the caddis flies, stoneflies and this sort of thing; midges.
RG:
And so you’d get a square you’d put a thing like a square, then you’d kick it up and
gather what’s ever there so you could tell how much there is per square foot.
BM:
So somebody must be kicking upstream –
RG:
Yeah, or a lot of times you can just put – in a stream it’s easier because you can put it out
there like that and just kick.
BM:
Right and it moves it right into your net then. Okay.
JN:
Yeah.
RG:
Yeah.
JN:
Those were all part of the mechanics of operating in the field that we were teaching then.
This sort of thing is not being taught anymore.
BM:
Um-hmm.
RG:
Bill Sigler – the term I remember him using is that it teaches you, you have a “bag of
tricks” that at least makes you look like you know what you’re doing.
[Laughing]
RG:
Because a lot of times, those techniques are fine-tuned when you go to work for an
agency or you find out what they’re using and you get more advice, you know. But if you
go out there not knowing anything – actually it was the electro-shocking that got me the
job in Missouri. I knew a lot about it because we did so much of it.
JN:
We did so much of it here, yeah.
RG:
I had my arms strained out like this several times! [Laughing]
BM:
So you went back there and then introduced them to that technology, as a student?
RG:
They had some technology for it, but they really didn’t understand much about it and so I
introduced them. When I went to Leetown they had equipment that they didn’t know how
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�to use, for collecting parasites, you know. They had an electric seine there and I set that
whole thing up so they could collect fish to do the parasites studies.
BM:
It sounds tremendously hands-on as far as the kinds of tools and techniques and “bag of
tricks” (as Bill Sigler referred to it).
RG:
Yeah. Those are we’d go set nets at Hyrum or something or the old Pelican pond out
here. And you did learn your basic trade that way.
JN:
Yeah, that was one of the other collecting devices in fisheries that we had was the gill
nets.
RG:
Yeah.
JN:
We used a lot of gill nets and –
RG:
Everybody hated them though.
BM:
Because?
RG:
They’re a lot of work.
JN:
They’re a lot of work.
RG:
Especially if you get any of the yellow perch or something like that.
JN:
Get any yellow perch or bullheads, or catfish.
BM:
Tell us why they were a lot of work.
JN:
Because of the spines.
RG:
Spines, and those ctenoid scales. Once they get into the net they’re awful to get out. You
have to pick those nets and there’s also lots of them. You might have 1,000 fish there,
you know, that you just picked up in a net. And you’ve got to take every one of those out
and they don’t come out easy because of the spines get tangled up in the net.
BM:
Hmm.
RG:
I remember the guys in Schofield, not Schofield, Strawberry doing all that work at
Strawberry they found one of the chubs that they were working on. Bud Phelps said,
“Best way to pick the net is to lay it out in the road and drive over it in the truck a few
times and then shake them off.”
[Laughing]
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�JN:
Yeah. That works.
BM:
So you have these modules that each of the groups is rotating through so they get
experience in all the disciplines.
JN:
Yeah, all around.
BM:
At the end of one module then, are you putting that together in terms of looking at the
health of the fisheries? Are you looking at the data and making assumptions on what
we’re finding?
JN:
Yeah. Usually you’d have to write a paper – everybody had to write a paper on what
you’d learned in that particular module.
RG:
Yeah. And then you’d do things like age and growth, you know and measure the annual
line in the scales and measure that and project that to the length.
JN:
One of the other techniques that we used in fisheries that we were introduced there was
using rotenone to sample (actually it was sampling), but actually we became pretty
knowledgeable about using it to reclaim lake populations.
RG:
We did that for a little while with toxifine too.
JN:
We toxifine, yeah -- toxifine lasted too long in alkaline waters and they couldn’t really
rehabilitate the waters.
BM:
Okay. Help me understand the application of rotenone: how you prepare it and how you
apply it.
JN:
Rotenone, you know, is a powder made from Derris root, Amazon basin.
RG:
They use it a lot to spray in gardens and stuff.
BM:
Right.
JN:
We used to use the powder rope – we’d get big sacks of it and then it wasn’t very easily
emulsified, so you’d have to mix it up in water and then spread it out, usually with a hose
of some kind.
RG:
It was dangerous for the user.
JN:
It was really dangerous for the user. Later on they came up with an emulsifiable form of
it. And we did some of the first big reclamation projects in the United States here what
we learned. Bill McConnell and I did that. What we learned in school, using rotenone.
Navajo Lake and Panguitch Lake were two of the first ones. Diamond Lake in Oregon
was one of the first ones that was built, and I think we were the second and third one.
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�RG:
And then we did it at Strawberry and that was –
JN:
Oh, that was the biggest one.
RG:
That was the biggest one ever. That was a million and a half pounds of rotenone.
BM:
And so you are putting this as a liquid into the water, or spraying a powder? You’re
putting it as a liquid?
RG:
Well, it depends. You can get it as a liquid. They started using it; they developed a
method for us to use in Strawberry, we did. Using the rotenone; you’re sucking the
powder up into and then it’s mixing and you can spray it. And then you would do it when
the lake is stratified too. The limnology was important: understanding stratification, you
know, so you wouldn’t have to treat the whole reservoir, you could treat the part where
the fish were.
BM:
Sure, that makes sense.
RG:
Take advantage of some kind of knowledge of that lake and the chemistry involved in
those strata. And that was a million and a half – we had people come from all over the
world (most of them were from around the country; Michigan sent several people to work
through the whole project because they wanted to see it done).
BM:
So what happens to that rotenone then? It goes into the water column –
JN:
It disperses pretty well, actually.
RG:
And you can detox it with potassium permanganate.
JN:
Yeah, you can detox it. The way it works on the animal is it constricts the blood vessels
in the gills and they suffocate. As a matter of fact, it also does that to humans. If you get
it into the eyes, for example, it will constrict the blood supply to the eyes and you become
temporarily blind.
RG:
When they did that up Strawberry on Schofield then, almost all the crews were blinded.
And they didn’t know that then and all at once, nobody could see, you know. They ended
up setting up a field station and they had to give them all cortisone shots.
JN:
Cortisone shots, yeah.
RG:
To help. But it scared the hell out of all of them.
BM:
Oh, I bet.
RG:
Then I took that when we did the big million and half pounds at Strawberry, I told them
“You guys at Schofield – that was an afternoon – we’re talking about two weeks out there
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�on Strawberry.” And I said, “The people are not going to be able to do that.” And so I
said, “I would insist that they take care of the personnel, too.” And so they spent
$100,000 on the protection for the personnel.
BM:
So what kind of protection did they have?
RG:
Gas masks and breathing devices, you know. And organizing so that people were only
out there a short time, you know. So I was in charge of that whole safety program for that
whole thing.
JN:
The first time that happened to me was down in Panguitch Lake. I had a student from the
University of Utah that was on my crew and he got blinded. His name was Robert E. Lee,
incidentally! He actually became a colonel in the Air Force. He was an interesting guy.
You know the fish that we killed, they were edible – you could eat them, it was not
dangerous to eat them. So we’d pick up the biggest trout, for example, and take them
back to camp and cook them up and Robert cooked his up in neatsfoot
oil! [Laughing]
But it tasted alright!
[Laughing]
BM:
So the fish are edible, but –
RG:
Well the FDA maintained that they weren’t, so it became illegal for us to do that.
BM:
So what’s happening then is these fish are coming to the surface, they’re suffocating and
coming to the surface, and then you are counting? You are –
RG:
Well, yeah you do. You know the [inaudible] massive load of fish.
BM:
Yeah.
RG:
You do some sampling and –
JN:
The idea was to get rid of all the fish in the area.
BM:
Right.
RG:
Yeah. I was kind of always against that. I fought that project in the staff meeting because
I told him I don’t like using poison on that grand of scale – because you’re killing
everything.
JN:
Yeah, you kill the invertebrates as well.
RG:
I thought that was too heavy handed.
BM:
What did the water surface look like when this started to take effect?
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�JN:
A lot of white bellies.
RG:
Yeah, and of course there’s also going to be a huge stink.
BM:
Yeah.
RG:
Pelicans and fish-eating birds (particularly pelican), they would get so many fish they
couldn’t get out of the water. They’d fly off and then splash down again. It was really
funny to watch them try to get off the water.
BM:
Holy smokes.
RG:
You had to make sure people – we had quite a force going around making sure people
weren’t taking them up and eating them.
BM:
Right.
RG:
We had cornered the entire world market on rotenone. A lot of the Derris that grows in
South America – they’re taking a lot of those out and putting in coke plants. So it was
getting harder and harder to get that and it was quite a job to get that much rotenone.
BM:
Now tell me one more time the name of the plant that rotenone comes from?
JN:
Derris root.
RG:
Derris root.
BM:
How do you spell that?
JN:
D-E-R-R-I-S.
BM:
Okay. [Derris is a genus name; Derris elliptica from the tropical and subtropical climates
was used to derive Rotenone.]
JN:
These are all techniques that we learned in summer camp, actually when you get right
down to it. It was carried on into the profession by the students that went through those
programs.
RG:
Yeah, but a lot of those were wrong and they’d just refine them so they would understand
more how to fine-tune the program and actually use what you know. Taking out, you
know, mosquitoes with a hammer or something like that.
BM:
Right.
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�JN:
Actually the summer camp was really very interesting: in addition to all of these
techniques that you learned, you developed a real fellowship with your fellow students.
We’re in the field together, you slept together, you ate together; all of that sort of thing.
RG:
Camaraderie in a lot of ways.
JN:
You made life-long lasting friendships, actually which was very useful. We also had a lot
of hijinx that went on. One that I remember particularly, we had one Japanese student (a
guy by the name of Min Herinaca [spelled phonetically]. (He ended up getting his
doctorate, and I think he’s retired as a professor up at University of Idaho now.) But
anyhow, we had these mummy bags that we were sleeping in and I remember the Bud
Phelps and two or three other guys got together and it was time to get up. Min was kind
of reluctant to get out of bed in the morning and he was always snuggled down inside his
sleeping bag. So we grabbed his sleeping bag and pulled off to the side and drop it like
that (of course, two other guys would catch him) and he’d be going inside his bag like
that! [Laughing] It’s amazing that he wouldn’t rip it out!
[Laughing]
JN:
And the other thing is that we had . . .Yale University would bring their geology classes
out and we would put them during summer camp in that area. Of course during the
weekends – those poor guys they were out working all the time (the Yale guys were) –
and our boys would go downtown to Delmar [bar in Logan, Utah] and get drunk! And
they would come back up and in the middle of the night they would singing “bah, bah
black sheep, have you any wool for me?” [Singing and laughing] Serenading the Yale
boys!
BM:
Well you know, as far as you mentioned, all that stuff goes on and it does create
fellowship and collegiality. And from what I’ve heard from some other folks about field
camp is those are lifelong colleagues and lifelong friendships in many cases.
JN:
Yeah, absolutely.
BM:
Alright. Do you have one in particular that you can remember?
JN:
Life long fellowships? Bill McConnell and me.
JN:
Bill McConnell and I, we became like brothers, actually. We went to work for the
Division of Wildlife – or the Fish and Game Department at that time.
RG:
That was the second and third PhD for USU.
JN:
Yeah. Yeah Bill was the second – Kenny Wolf was the first.
RG:
Wolf, I got to know real well when I was at Leetown.
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�JN:
Kenny became a world-class virologist and was the “father” actually of fish virology.
JN:
Yeah. He was the first, and Bill McConnell was the second and I was the third PhD out of
Fish and Wildlife.
RG:
Ken was also the one that figured out the life cycle of whirling disease.
JN:
Right. Nobody believed him!
RG:
But we’re not talking about just in Wildlife: that was number one, two, three, and four for
the whole university.
BM:
Oh!
RG:
That was the beginning of the PhD programs.
JN:
Yeah.
BM:
Okay.
RG:
They were just as college for a while.
JN:
The Wildlife Department actually started the PhD programs in the university.
BM:
That’s right. What was your PhD in?
JN:
It was in Aquatic Ecology, basically: Aquatic Toxicology.
BM:
Studying?
JN:
It was studying florid effects on fish. That was mine. Bill McConnell’s PhD was on
stream periphyton.
BM:
What’s that?
JN:
Stream algae.
BM:
Okay.
JN:
And Kenny Wolf’s was –
RG:
Blue sac.
JN:
Blue sac disease in fish.
BM:
And what is that disease?
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�RG:
He did a lot of that work for White’s trout farm.
JN:
Yeah.
RG:
It’s tied up more with –
JN:
It’s a bacterial disease.
RG:
Well, but no. No, it’s ammonia and low circulation in the eggs.
JN:
Oh, yeah; it’s secondary bacterial infections.
RG:
Yeah, you got the – and it’s blue; the egg sac is blue.
BM:
Okay.
RG:
It took a long time before we figured it out. A lot of it was just short-circuiting the eggs
while they were being incubated. Some of them weren’t all getting water.
BM:
And what was the source of that?
RG:
Mostly ammonia was actually part of the metabolism of the fish –
JN:
Metabolism of the eggs themselves.
BM:
Okay.
RG:
But the circulation was so poor that it would be high and up –
[End Tape 1: B; begin Tape 2:A]
RG:
So anyway, like the two week intensive training that I gave the hatchery people. They
were there for two weeks – through the weekends, you know. We went straight through
because I didn’t want to send them back, way out all over the state, that’s too much
money. So, on Sunday we would have a picnic or something you know. But I noticed that
over the years – I took about 12 or 13 of them at a time, you know. And then we’d do it
until we had them all. So we were about a dozen groups that I would have for two weeks.
But I noticed that every time, after that when you’d have a section-wide or division-wide
meeting at Camp Williams or whatever, those guys were hanging out together. And that’s
part of that life-long –
BM:
Right.
RG:
It’s just not the fact that you took the group, but it’s a fairly intense thing. They live
together, they work together, they slept together, have a good time together, you know.
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�BM:
Um-hmm. Right.
RG:
So it takes more than just, like up here just taking a class with somebody.
BM:
Um-hmm.
RG:
That’s really important, I think.
JN:
That was one of the really great benefits about summer camp, I thought. Like I say, we
have lifelong friendships that unfortunately we keep burying now. One of the things that
stemmed out of it was our Mossback group. Actually our peers that we’ve worked
together for all these many years, but the summer camp together (a lot of us did) and
ended up carrying out in our so-called Mossback group.
RG:
We were the ones that did the transition from empirical wisdom to science.
JN:
Yeah.
BM:
Do you want to explain that?
RG:
A lot of the empirical wisdom, you just kind of learn on the job from you know, a lot of
them were pretty good at that. The people had a lot of good motivation and so forth, but
they didn’t have that kind of training. The professionals went from the good ol’ boys that
you hired that just knew what the animals in Logan were, to guys who were
professionally trained and were going to use all these new procedures and methods and
assessments. And all that becomes part of the interpretive stuff that’s brought up all the
way through the legislature.
BM:
Um-hmm.
RG:
You know, and a way to keep track and compare and start to develop these data bases.
And that was – John and Bill probably started that. They’re the ones that kicked that off.
But that whole bunch then became that – I call it the “vanguard” for that transition. I also
called it – in that Mossback book, I called it “vanguards of a young profession;” because
it was very much a young field.
JN:
After World War II it was.
BM:
Now, tell us a little bit about the “Mossback” group because I think they are crossreferenced at Special Collections, or will be.
RG:
Yeah, they have a copy of that book. I gave that to Brad [Cole] [USU Special Collections
& Archives: 925 G551]
BM:
So the Mossbacks are…..doesn’t sound like foresters.
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�RG:
No.
JN:
No, it was actually mostly fishery people.
RG:
Yeah, it’s basically something that’s been around long enough that it’s got moss growing
on its back!
JN:
We had some few other people come in.
RG:
They are still peers.
JN:
Yeah Doug Day was a peer. I think he did one year of work up here at Utah State, and he
got his degrees down at University of Utah. And the other guy we brought in was Bob
Benke, who was actually University of California-bred.
RG:
And Bob Wiley.
JN:
Bob Wiley, who was University of Wyoming-bred. But they were peers and they were
people that we worked with.
RG:
They were working on Flaming Gorge, and all these things, where we shared the waters,
you know: Flaming Gorge, Lake Powell, a lot of interstate waters. I remember those kind
of became part of your peer group.
JN:
Jack Jensen was the other one too.
RG:
Jack was actually one.
JN:
He was a Penn Stater.
RG:
You’ll enjoy talking to Jack. He’s just a first-class guy.
BM:
I’m looking forward to it.
What about, you know? What field camp faces through the decades with so many other
people that have talked about it are challenges. And keeping in form, you mentioned one
in terms of the GI Bill being so beneficial to supporting, and so that pressure for earning
money that summer wasn’t there. Were there other challenges with you? I mean how did
they handle families? If people came in that had wives or children?
JN:
Oh. Well here at the university we had temporary housing.
BM:
JN:
Okay.
They were actually military buildings that were – actually Utah State was known for one
time as the “West Point of the West.” We had a huge ROTC group here.
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�RG:
The student housing was called “Morning Sickness Row.”
JN:
Yeah.
[Laughing]
JN:
It was! Yeah –
RG:
It was “Morning Sickness Row”! “We’re over in Morning Sickness Row…”
JN:
But the temporary buildings – they’re all gone now, but –
BM:
Where were those located?
JN:
Where the Ag Sciences building is right now –
BM:
Um-hmm.
JN:
That area.
RG:
They used to be over where the over where the Triads [married student housing, now
called Aggie Village] are too, weren’t they?
JN:
No. That was all farm land.
RG:
Yeah, that’s right.
JN:
And an airport. We had an airport up here when I first came out here.
BM:
So what did these buildings look like?
JN:
Well, have you seen those temporary military barracks? We also had Quonset huts were
part of it.
RG:
Quonsets.
JN:
We had a trailer park that –
RG:
They weren’t very plush.
JN:
Yeah, they weren’t very plush, but they were old military trailers. And then we had two
story buildings that were divided up into apartments. When Ruth and I came out here (we
were married when we came out here), we rented an apartment in one of those – an
upstairs apartment. It was a one bedroom (I don’t think there were any two bedrooms,
there was only one bedroom ones), and a combination living room/dining room, and a
bathroom and that was it.
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�BM:
You’re up in summer camp for two months and Ruth is in town?
JN:
I wasn’t married at that time.
BM:
Okay.
JN:
She came later. I told you about when I first came out here in 1950 and came across a dirt
road down Laketown Canyon to Bear Lake. I got this spiritual experience going through
the canyon. Two years later I brought my new bride down the same way: down through
Laketown canyon. And it was in January, and the lake was frozen, there was snow all
around it, you know. And we came down into the bottom of the Logan Canyon and came
to a sign that says, “You are now entering Logan: a town designed for living.” And Ruth
said, “Where’s the town? Where’s the town?”
[Laughing]
JN:
I took her over to the Quonset, which was just upside and said, “This is our apartment.”
And she said, “Well where’s the town?”
[Laughing]
JN:
I finally took her downtown and she was so delighted to see that there was a drugstore
down there.
RG:
Only one: Lowcost.
JN:
Lowcost, yeah!
BM:
How big was Logan at that time?
JN:
Oh, only about 8,000 people, I think. Something like that.
RG:
Yeah, the whole valley was about 30,000.
JN:
Well at that time, no, the valley was even less than that! It was, I think it was 16,000
people.
RG:
Strictly rural.
BM:
Wow.
JN:
Strictly rural, yeah.
[Stop and start recording]
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�JN:
Fieldwork that went on, we’d have to get permission from the Ranger. So the Ranger
would work with us, for example.
BM:
This is the Ranger on the Logan District?
JN:
The Logan District, right.
BM:
Okay.
JN:
Let’s see, we also – I can’t remember that we had any Fish and Game people involved at
that time. No, not at that time. It was mostly the Forest Service. And some of our field
trips took us out into Bureau of Land Management land, and we’d have the BLM Ranger
talk to us, give us some of the umbrella-sort of experiences.
BM:
And where did you go?
JN:
Well, for the Forest Service we stayed here in the Cache.
BM:
Um-hmm.
JN:
A lot of the Fish and Game work we went down to the Bear River Bird Refuge – we did
a lot of work down there on birds and also on fish. Bureau of Land Management was over
in Rich County, basically. We’d get into that and we’d have (I can’t recall the names of
the people that we had involved down there at that time). Most of our fieldwork was done
locally. We didn’t go off on any long distance – a lot of that came later.
At the university in our junior and senior years, especially senior year, we organized into
what we referred to as “senior field trips.” These were usually two week affairs that we
went through the west. We’d go – two of them that I was involved in as a student – we
went into the Columbia River basin, for example, stayed at Oregon State, Northern
California, southern Washington and Oregon; spent our time there looking at salmon
fisheries and all this sort of stuff.
The second one that we went into the desert. We went down into the Grand Canyon area,
Arizona, New Mexico, desert big game range. It was mostly a big game thing. This was
the wildlife thing. The foresters also had similar trips, as did the range management
people. But that also stopped after a while; they stopped doing that. I remember after I
joined the faculty I took several of them out on field trips myself. You know, it always
ended up being a big logistic problems because you had to find places to stay and feed
your troops kind of stuff.
RG:
Even that sort of thing, I think, was probably impacted to a certain extent by the GI Bill.
BM:
How so?
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�RG:
Because even two weeks was not an easy thing for somebody that was having to work
just to stay in school.
BM:
Right.
JN:
Yeah.
RG:
And I think once the GI Bill petered out, that was pretty much what stopped it.
JN:
That pretty well stopped that kind of stuff, yeah.
BM:
Well and it also sounds like field camp was all of the departments together –
JN:
Yeah, it was.
RG:
Yeah.
BM:
And these senior field trips were more separated by your specialties.
JN:
They were separated, yeah.
BM:
Okay.
JN:
Into your specialty areas, yeah. Up here in the Cache, a lot of our work was centered on
what became the school forest later on. And actually I remember when I went to work
after summer camp, I went to work for Dr. Daniels and Ray Moore, my two team leaders
were Sterling Rickman and (I can’t remember his name, he was from Arkansas) [Sam
Jackson]. Anyhow, our job was basically to go out and lay out growth plots. We did
chain and compass work with that. And we laid out a grid of growth plots that became the
basis for growth on the forest. Later on they would revisit these plots every year to see
what the changes in growth were and the species composition, and so on. And that was
really very interesting work for me.
BM:
And you’re getting long-term information.
JN:
And long-term information that the school really benefit – or the research done by the
Forestry Department - actually benefited from. I do remember that we had a campout –
we didn’t have cabins or anything to stay in, so we stayed in tents – and I became very
constipated and developed a severe case of bleeding hemorrhoids.
BM:
Oof!
RG:
It was the pain in the ass!
JN:
Yeah, it was a pain in the ass.
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�[Laughing] [Omitted from transcript personal information]
BM:
Well one other thing that you haven’t mentioned is Benchmark Hill. Was this part of your
era?
JN:
Yeah, that’s where we did a lot of our surveying work.
BM:
Right.
JN:
That’s why it was called “Benchmark Hill.” We learned about the U.S. Geological
Service benchmark system. And we did have a benchmark there. Then we had to locate
benchmarks on the rest of the forest; that was part of our exercise. That’s where we also
found a lot of rattlesnakes. That was “Rattlesnake Hill” as far as I was concerned. The
first three rattlesnakes I ever saw in the state of Utah, I stepped on…before I saw them!
BM:
Yeah.
JN:
Fortunately I was never bit.
BM:
Oh!
RG:
They were still taking courses in surveying too, weren’t they?
JN:
Yeah, that was surveying courses.
RG:
You’d take actually a course in surveying.
JN:
Yeah, that was after.
RG:
After.
JN:
No, no, no. That was – I transferred from the University of Wisconsin, so I had my
surveying back there. But you took your surveying here as a freshman and a sophomore,
before summer camp.
RG:
Yeah. I took mine at Nebraska.
JN:
Yeah.
RG:
Everybody had benchmarks to work with.
BM:
You know, it sounds like (and you mentioned before) what an experience this was in
terms of eating, sleeping and dreaming together and working hard. I mean I bet there
were some long hours.
RG:
Yeah.
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�JN:
There were long hours. It was hard work, there were long hours, yeah.
RG:
But you didn’t mind it; I didn’t mind it. You’d get tired, but you had fun doing it. Just a
great experience.
JN:
Oh, Sam Jackson was the other guy’s name: Sam Jackson and Sterling Rickman. Sterling
Rickman died, I think two years after we graduated from the University, from the college.
And Sam Jackson became some kind of a big shot down in Arkansas. I think he became
the director of the Arkansas Department of Fish and Game.
BM:
Hmm. Well when you think of students today that are graduating in these fields (you
know, all the departments within Natural Resources), what are they missing by not
having something like a field camp experience?
JN:
Well one of the things I think they’re missing is the camaraderie; field experience, the
technology and techniques. This is the sort of thing now they have to learn on the job,
after they get hired.
RG:
We also, in those days, we didn’t have such thing as work study students. You helped
your colleagues.
JN:
Oh yeah!
RG:
Otherwise, you were dead in the water. Everybody would just go out and go help set nets,
or go help electro-shock or work with bottom samples. I learned more from those things
than I did from my own study. And they would help me to.
BM:
So you weren’t getting paid for it, but it was hands-on learning?
RG:
Yeah.
BM:
That you could do with somebody doing a research project?
RG:
Yeah and none of you could do it because you’re all needed, so somebody’s got to hold
the other end of the seine, or something like that.
BM:
Right, right.
RG:
If you don’t have –
JN:
And that was all volunteer.
RG:
Yeah.
JN:
Everybody volunteered to help everybody else.
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�RG:
A lot of times you would end up – if you caught a bunch of fish – you’d have a big
barbecue up the canyon or something like that.
JN:
Send [?] from Logan to Wyoming to bring a keg of beer back.
RG:
A keg of beer, yeah!
[Laughing]
JN:
And the wives would make potato salad, and all that kind of stuff, and we would have a
great, big blastoff.
RG:
It would often be last minute a lot of times because you didn’t plan it because you didn’t
know you were going to have those fish always.
BM:
Right, right.
RG:
I don’t know whether I’m not that aware of it anymore because I’m not that involved up
here anymore, but I don’t think it’s there; I don’t hear it, I don’t sense it.
JN:
I’ve got that impression. I’ve got the same impression that there isn’t that same kind of
camaraderie among our graduate students, for example, as it used to be. Or among the
faculty; the faculty have basically become isolated in their own area of endeavor, you
know, and they don’t seem to want to get out of it for some reason.
RG:
They’ll all have lunch at the Skyroom [USU campus restaurant] or something, you know.
But we used to have lunch right here and everybody was invited you know.
JN:
Yeah. Cases of glicksteich [unsure of spelling].
BM:
What is that?
JN:
Malt liquor!
RG:
Malt liquor. It was pretty strong stuff. It came in about this size.
BM:
Well it sounds like the camaraderie was field oriented, versus being office or building, or
Skyroom oriented, as you’re saying.
JN:
Well it was and it wasn’t. After I became a faculty member, I used to have a graduate
student bull pen where all my graduate students would be housed together. And that sort
of a thing went on after I graduated as a student and became a faculty member. And those
were interesting. Every morning I would go down and sit with the graduate students and
we would just talk about things at random. We kind of learned a hell of a lot from each
other. I learned a lot as a faculty member too.
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�RG:
[inaudible] good reason.
JN:
Yeah. The one thing that impressed me about that whole thing is I was the only Democrat
in the whole bunch and all my students were Republicans.
[Laughing]
RG:
Well they had the old cubicles there –
JN:
Oh yeah, in the old building.
RG:
In the old forestry building.
JN:
That was a bull pen.
RG:
Where the parking thing is out on the – what is that street? 8th?
BM:
Or 7th?
RG:
7th?
BM:
Um-hmm. 7th North.
RG:
Yeah that was where – then you also had the guy you walk up the street – the old College
Bluebird. That’s where everybody had coffee.
BM:
Where was that?
RG:
It was basically where the LDS Institute is up there.
BM:
Okay.
JN:
Right on that corner.
BM:
So on the corner of 8th East and 7th North, at that light? In from there?
JN:
Yeah.
RG:
Yeah.
JN:
Right across from the Student Center.
RG:
And that’s where all the non-Mormons were.
BM:
The College Bluebird? So this is the Bluebird Restaurant?
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�JN:
Yeah.
RG:
It was the same logo –
JN:
It was owned by the same people.
RG:
-- same people. Everybody ate lunch there; you had coffee there. That’s where you’d go
see Bill Sigler.
JN:
Yeah.
BM:
Huh.
RG:
A lot of big conversations sitting – you could also smoke there then.
JN:
Yeah, no smoking. Well, no actually we were allowed to smoke in the buildings at that
time, yeah. A faculty member could smoke in their own offices; that’s what it boiled
down to. Students always went outside to smoke.
BM:
If you wanted to change that and you look at what we have now, because I think what
you’re sharing is very similar to what many other people talk about. If you wanted to
bring back or move ahead with increasing that feeling of camaraderie and some of the
benefits that were in these other programs – if you ran the world, what would you do
differently? What would you suggest for that, if I can ask?
RG:
Well there’s one thing that I’ve been thinking about just recently, a couple of things that
Obama has actually suggested: volunteer service where you got credits (like the GI’s did
for the GI Bill, you know) to go to college and that sort of thing. I think that’s one of the
serious things that’s missing. We don’t have that kind of shared experience anymore in
this country. We all had a do it or something like that, or the ones that did do it got some
kind of reward for doing. So they had that sense of group and also some tangible reward
for going to college so they could do things like this.
JN:
The culture has changed substantially though. Personally, I would like to see something
like the CCC started again. I think what Ron is talking about – not necessarily a volunteer
(you get paid for it, you get paid poorly), but you do get that kind of experience.
RG:
I suppose like the Peace Corps and those types of things.
JN:
Like the Peace Corps. You know, there are a variety of things like that. But boy, our
parks and our Forest Service facilities, and all of these things are in sore need of
attention; financial attention of one sort or another, and by George this administration
could create a CCC to put people to work in these areas.
RG:
I think that’s kind of what he has in mind.
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�JN:
I sure hope so, that’s what he has in mind.
RG:
He made quite a play with that.
JN:
Yeah.
BM:
Well, and even being paid poorly in those positions, for many people, being paid at all
may be very important in the next few years.
JN:
Absolutely! Yeah, sure.
BM:
And being able to use those skills.
RG:
But you know, like I say, I really don’t think that stuff would have been at all available if
it hadn’t been for the GI Bill.
JN:
Yeah, I agree.
RG:
In fact, after the GI Bill dried up, that was the end of it.
BM:
And when did that dry up? When was that over?
JN:
In the ‘70s, with Vietnam, yeah. Well, you could still get credit for college in the military
(right now you can get it now), but it’s not like it used to be. It used to be you could get
the full ride and they paid you a salary and everything.
RG:
Yeah, but in those days, during the Second World War, everybody was in.
JN:
Yeah.
RG:
Everybody. I mean, you were classified, you had a draft classification. When I was 18 I
got my draft card.
JN:
There were two programs that were started. One was the education program on the GI
Bill. It was a really great program because it was a full-ride program: you got a salary,
they paid your tuition, they bought your books; they bought any fees for the college, and
so on. It didn’t cost you a penny. You could go on through and get your education that
way. And then they offered one other thing they called 52-20. And you’d get $20 for 52
weeks, and you didn’t have to go to school for it. However, if you took advantage of that
you couldn’t take advantage of the GI Bill in college. So a lot of the people that didn’t
want to get an education, they went to 52-20.
RG:
And a lot of them that did get it wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for the GI Bill.
JN:
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.
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�BM:
Well any closing thoughts that we have on your experience? Personally or
professionally?
JN:
I had a great life. That’s all I can say. I’m 80 years old now, and I really enjoyed just
about every minute. Well, there were some things that I would’ve done differently I
suspect. I got into University Administration; in retrospect I would have been happier, I
suppose, if I’d have stayed as a teaching and research professor.
BM:
The administration you’re talking about is the Ecology Center?
JN:
It was the Ecology Center, yeah. And of course I became Associate Dean and all that sort
of stuff. And dealing with people issues mostly. Of course I did a lot on the national
scene: I became Director of Ecosystem Analysis at the National Science Foundation for a
couple of years. Then became Director of the Institute of Ecology for four or five years, I
think, I was involved in that. And that was TIE – it was basically environmental activism
and that sort of thing.
BM:
And what is T-I-E?
JN:
The Institute of Ecology.
BM:
The Institute of Ecology, okay.
RG:
That’s the one that Art Hasler had.
JN:
Yeah, Art Hasler was the first director of it and I took over from him. Art Hasler was a
BYU graduate, became professor of limnology in Aquatic Sciences at the University of
Wisconsin and a long time professor in that area. He managed to establish a really good
aquatic program there. It’s still going pretty strong.
RG:
I think that stuff thought, I could echo that, but I think a lot of it had to do with that
camaraderie though. Lifelong peers and peer group type of associations and great friends.
You fought a lot of the good, hard battles together, you know. I always like to say back to
back, you know. That’s just hard to replace. And I really don’t see that happening – not in
the same sense – not lifelong. I’ve felt that way for some time, that we don’t have that
sort of thing even available in this country anymore.
BM:
So the opportunity doesn’t even exist?
RG:
Yeah. There is no place – service used to be one of the big equalizers. Everybody grew
up doing service.
JN:
One of the faculty members – he and I stay in close email contact with each other – Jack
Schulz (and Joann Schulz). They had a similar experience at the University of Michigan.
They have a group that they call “les voyageurs” that is basically they take the name from
the French explorers in the area. They get together every year. In the wintertime they do
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�snow shoeing. Long treks in the summertime they get together, as a group; the same sort
of a thing that we had then. It’s a camaraderie that started at the University of Michigan
and has lasted. Michigan State University had a summer camp at Gull Lake in Michigan.
And those people, as I understand it, do pretty much the same thing that we’re doing here
– in the camaraderie. But these are all people from back post-World War II. A lot of them
are dead or retired and/or dead now. But that sort of thing is missing; I agree with Ron
completely it is missing. You don’t see the same thing happening.
Do you see it going up at the university?
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�
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2012-11-12
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John Neuhold and Ron Goede interview, 22 February 2009, and transcript
Description
An account of the resource
John Neuhold and Ron Goede discuss their experiences at the Utah State University Summer Camp (and the skills and camaraderie they gained there) and other experiences in their education, including those with the GI Bill.
Creator
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Goede, Ronald W., 1934-
Neuhold, John M.
Contributor
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Middleton, Barbara
Subject
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Goede, Ronald W., 1934---Interviews
Neuhold, John M.--Interviews
Utah State University--Faculty--Interviews
Utah State University. Forestry Field Station Camp
United States. Montgomery G.I. Bill
Veterans--Education--Utah--Logan
Forestry schools and education--United States
Utah. Division of Wildlife Resources--Officials and employees--Training
Ecology--Study and teaching--Utah--Logan
Forests and forestry--Study and teaching--Utah--Logan
Forest management--Study and teaching--Utah--Logan Canyon
Range management-Study and teaching--Utah--Logan Canyon
Fishery management--Study and teaching--Utah--Logan Canyon
Rotenone--Utah
Goede, Ronald W., 1934---Friends and associates
Neuhold, John M.--Friends and associates
Mossbacks (Club)
Logan (Utah)--History
Utah State University--Students--Anecdotes
College teachers--Utah--Logan--Interviews
Utah State University. Forestry Dept.--Research
Ecology--Fieldwork--Utah--Logan Canyon
Forests and forestry--Fieldwork--Utah--Logan Canyon
Forest management--Fieldwork--Utah--Logan Canyon
Range management--Fieldwork--Utah--Logan Canyon
Fishery management--Fieldwork--Utah--Logan Canyon
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Oral histories
Interviews
Spatial Coverage
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Logan Canyon (Utah)
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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1950-1959
1960-1969
1970-1979
1980-1989
1990-1999
2000-2009
20th century
21st century
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eng
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 3 Fd. 2
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Inventory for the Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection can be found at: <a href="http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php">http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php</a>
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of the USU Fife Folklore Archives Curator, phone (435) 797-3493
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Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection
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22 February 2009
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2009-02-22
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Logan Canyon Reflections
-
http://highway89.org/files/original/14543bf93259e4823ef80bb976b0030c.mp3
3fdb21748d70982420ec86c054943f9d
http://highway89.org/files/original/2f15c9695e5c5e3b877f54072b0607e1.pdf
341343064e93ff303bacc9460407d016
PDF Text
Text
LOGAN CANYON ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
William Daly Hurst
Place of Interview: Bill Hurst’s Room, Cottonwood Creek Retirement Center in SLC, Utah
Date of Interview: 11 February 2009
Interviewer: Barbara Middleton & Thad Box
Recordist:
Barbara Middleton
Recording Equipment:
Radio Shack, CTR-122
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Chelsea Amdal
Randy Williams, 4/23/2009; Bill Hurst; Randy Williams, 7/12/11
Brief Description of Contents: Bill Hurst’s experiences on the Forest Service and in Logan
Canyon: Cache National Forest.
Reference:
BH = Bill Hurst
BM = Barbara Middleton (Interviewer; Interpretive Specialist, Environment &
Society Dept., USU College of Natural Resources)
TB = Thad Box (Interviewer; former Dean USU College of Natural Resources
and Emeritus Professor: Range Management)
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with
brackets. Mr. Hurst reviewed the transcript and made a few changes; however, these changes are
not indicated, so the transcript and the tape may not match at all times. Mr. Hurst’s personal
papers are located in USU’s Special Collections MSS 362.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 2: A]
BM:
This is Barbara Middleton and I am here interviewing Bill Hurst with Thad Box and we
are both here to talk on the second part of the interview with Bill Hurst. It is Wednesday
February 11th 2009; it is about 11 o’clock in the morning and we are here in Salt Lake
City, Utah. As you remember from the first tape we started off with Bill’s biographical
sketch and now we are going to start with Bill’s relationship with Logan Canyon and
where that started with the Cache National Forest. So Bill…
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�BH:
I first became acquainted with the Cache National Forest when I went to Logan to enter
Utah Agricultural College in 1934. Our professor, mainly Ray Becraft, took us on a
number of field trips into Logan Canyon to study plants and the effects of grazing on the
vegetation and talk to us about forestry in general. At that time there were only four
professors in the School of Forestry. One of them was T.G. Taylor who was head of the
School of Forestry. The School didn’t have a Dean at the time. Raymond Becraft taught
range and some range related plant identification classes although we did take botany in
the Botany Department from Bassett McGuire. The other professors there at the time
were Paul M. Dunn who later became Dean when the School of Forestry was founded. A
man named McGlochlin and J. Whitney Floyd, who later became Dean, made up the
primary faculty in 1934-35. Slim Hansen, a graduate student they brought back to help
teach this rather large class of foresters that started in 1934. The Forestry School at Utah
State experienced a large increase in students in the fall of 1934, as did many other
Forestry Schools around the Country. The Civilian Conservation Camps had a lot to do
with this I believe, since many of the Camps were located within the National Forests and
young men became acquainted with the forests and the Forest Service. At any rate, that
was the faculty in the 1934-35 Forestry School. So that was my first relationship with
Logan Canyon and the Old Juniper, the monarch of the forest.
[Omits information about moose encounter from tape.]
BH:
[Later in this paper I will tell you about my first encounter with a moose which took
place in Logan Canyon.]
TB:
You mentioned being up Logan Canyon quite a bit. Did they have a normal Summer
Camp or did they just take you up in classes? How did they get you up there to
understand the land?
BH:
[Utah State had no Summer Camp at the time. Their first Summer School was held in
August of 1936 in Logan Canyon. During my freshman year,] Dr. Becraft took us on a
number of one day field trips. One day we climbed to the top of Mount Logan stopping in
each vegetative zone where our teacher explained to us how elevation influences the
vegetation in each zone. We went on a number of field trips with him. He loved the field
trips and was a really excellent teacher. I attended the first forestry summer camp at Tony
Grove in Logan Canyon in the fall of 1936. The Camp lasted about six weeks as I
remember. It was held in the old CCC Camp. I think there were about 35-36 of us. Thad,
when you were Dean, I gave you my pictures of that camp so they must be at the
University some place.
TB:
Yes. I think they are there somewhere. We’ll dig them out.
BH:
At that time, Whit Floyd was in charge of the camp. He was a pretty seasoned guy in the
University and handled a lot of different camps. Art Smith was a member of the faculty
and helped with the Summer Camp, as did Dr. D.I. Rasmussen, head of the Wildlife
Department and E.L. Stoddart head of the Range Management Department.
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�BM:
Bill, can I ask you a question? You mentioned the camp was in the fall of 1936? And I’m
familiar with camp being in the summer. Could you explain a little bit of how that
worked into your school year?
BH:
The Fall Quarter would start sometime after the middle of September. Summer Camp
would start sometime in August. The year I attended Summer Camp we moved directly
from Camp into the class rooms at the University. As far as I know a similar schedule
prevailed throughout the history of the Camp.
BM:
Most of you were working summer jobs and then coming off of those summer jobs right
into forestry camp?
BH:
Yes. I quit herding sheep in mid August and went directly to Summer Camp
TB:
When you were talking about the faculty you mentioned Art Smith. I’ve had other
students tell me that Art broke colts while he was teaching up there, was that true?
BH:
I wouldn’t be surprised. His uncle, who lived in Idaho; had one of the most highly prized
stallions in the State of Idaho. Art lived with his uncle I understand, so I’m sure he was
riding his horses.
TB:
I had several students tell that while he was teaching range classes he’d be breaking the
colts at the same time.
BH:
Yes, that could be true. I’ve never seen the horses with Art, but he was at ease around
horses. I’ve never seen him riding any bucking broncos however.
BM:
So after these six weeks in Summer Camp, then pretty much this crew of camp students
would start classes in the fall.
BH:
Right. And as I said, 1936 was the beginning of that program. I enjoyed summer camp.
We had a man and his wife who did the cooking. Their name was Cooley. They did the
cooking for many years at the Summer Camp. And I mean they put on a feed at every
meal.
One of the indelible memories of the camp was a truck wreck we had on the Beaver
Creek road east of Summer Camp. The Forestry School had a stake bed a one and a half
ton truck. A four and a half foot rack was in place on the truck bed. There were no seats
on the truck beds however. When traveling, the occupants would stand up holding onto
the racks. One afternoon about half of the camp students and two Professors, Whitney
Floyd and Professor Barnes, loaded in the truck to drive out about 10 miles to a study
area. The two teachers were in the cab with the driver. All of the students were in the
truck bed holding on to the racks. As we paralleled Beaver Creek, a stream laden with
willows, a couple in a red sedan came toward us from the opposite direction and failed to
yield space on the narrow road. The right hand wheels of our truck went over the edge
and the truck fell topside down into Beaver Creek. Only the willows prevented this from
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�being a tragic accident. They cushioned the landing in the creek bed. However, there
were many cut faces and arms and some with body cuts. As soon as transportation was
available we were all taken to a Logan Budge Hospital [200 North and 300 East] and
examined. All but two of us, Virgil Peterson and Clyde Lowe, were returned to Tony
Grove Camp for the night. The other two remained in the Hospital for a night or two.
TB:
Did he destroy the truck?
BH:
I don’t remember; I don’t think it destroyed it because it landed in the willows also. But
the willows were thick enough that it was upside down propped up.
TB:
The reason I ask, when I started teaching Summer Camp in 1959, we had a 1936
Chevrolet truck, a green one, and two old army 6X6’s. That’s what we took the students
out in. I just wondered if that was the same truck or a replacement.
BH:
Well it could be. It could be the same truck. But that was our thrill for the day. In those
pictures that I gave you Thad, Virgil’s still had a bandage on his head.
TB:
Hum.
BM:
So in a group like that, were you mixing forestry, wildlife, range; was there a wide
assortment of students in that camp?
BH:
In that day, especially during the first two year of Collage, we didn’t consider ourselves
different. We were first and foremost students in the School of Forestry. . Most if not all
of us had taken classes together during the first two years of Collage. However, I think in
1936 they had Dr. Stoddart on board; he was head of the Range Department. And they
had Dr. Rasmussen on board and he was head of the Wildlife Department. And Paul
Dunn, I don’t think they called him a Dean yet, but he was head of the School of Forestry
Range and Wildlife, in effect the Dean. At Summer Camp, we were exposed to all of
these disciplines. The students were broken down into two or more units. Each unit
would then go to the field or class room and study one particular field. The crews would
then rotate until all had been exposed to the entire field of study.
BM:
What time did they get you up in the morning and when did the day end?
BH
As I remember, we would get up about 6:00 AM and be ready for field work or study by
8:00 AM. I think dinner was around 5:30 or 6:00PM. Lunch would be at noon. We
would take lunches to the field and this happened often.
BM:
And were there evening lectures then?
BH:
Yes, we had some evening programs but I don’t remember much about them. After a day
in the field hiking and climbing hills we were usually tired in the evening.
BM:
Is it Doc’s Hill?
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�BH:
Yes, yes Doc. I’m trying to think of his name.
TB/BM:
Daniel?
BH:
Oh Doc Daniel yes. He hadn’t arrived at Utah State in 1936.
BM:
So that was Benchmark Hill.
TB:
Yes, Benchmark Hill.
BH:
Yes.
TB:
Bill, do you have recollections of what the country was like in 1936 up Logan Canyon? As far as
you mentioned range conditions that Stoddart was teaching you, as compared to what it is now or
other times in your career?
BH:
Well, no I really don’t. I really don’t. However, during that same period of time I was
herding sheep on the Dixie National Forest. I herded sheep the summer before I went to
college and the first summer after I started college. I couldn’t get a job so I herded sheep
One day I killed a mutton and checked the stomach to see what it had been eating. I
found a leaf that looked like a holly leaf. I can’t think of the name of that plant now. It
was a heavy leaf with little prickly around the edges
BM:
Like an Oregon grape?
BH:
Yes. Well, something like an Oregon grape.
BM:
Utah Holly maybe.
BH:
Yes, it looked like an Oregon grape or holly. However, on the chart then being used by
range survey crews the plant had no palatability whatever. A few days after I had killed a
mutton and found an Oregon Grape leaf in its stomach, here comes the range survey crew
of guys I knew. They came in to have dinner with me. We got to talking about what’s
palatable and what isn’t. I think it was Oliver said “Well, they won’t eat this and they
won’t eat that,” and so forth. He pointed to the little holly plant and said “They won’t eat
that.” I said “I’ll bet you they will.” Then I showed him the leaf taken from the sheep’s
stomach. We had a good laugh over this and agreed the sheep made a mistake when it ate
the Oregon grape leaf. So we were thinking about what’s palatable and what isn’t in those
days. My sheep herding experience served me well after I got into the Forest Service.
BM:
How so?
BH:
Well, I learned what livestock could do if not properly taken care of and what the herder
had to do to protect both the sheep and the land they were using. I learned that it wasn’t
easy to get even utilization of the country. And I learned that herding sheep isn’t a lazy
man’s job. With only one herder with the sheep it’s a 24 hour a day responsibility.
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�I gathered plants when time permitted and identified and pressed them. I carried a plant
book with me most every day and had a plant press in my camp.
Through the sheep herding experience I gained a better appreciation of the problems of a
stockman. I think that helped me more than anything else. Their [stockman] life isn’t an
easy one.
Now to go back to Thad’s question of comparing what land looked like in 1935 to what it
is today. To attempt to answer this question I’m going back to my sheep herding days in
Southern Utah where I did make an eyeball sixty year comparison at the request of the
Supervisor of the Dixie National Forest, Hugh Thompson. To quote from my Memoirs
which were completed at the end of the year 2000 [A life Recalled: Memoirs of William
Daly Hurst by Williams Hurst.]
On July 17, (1995) VerMon Barney (my Brother in Law) and I trailered
horses to Castle Valley to spend two days riding with Supervisor Hugh
Thompson, Ranger Ron Wilson and Range Staff Officer Dale Harris on
the Houston Mountain where I herded sheep the summers of 1935 and
1936. Our ride took us to the old Jenson Sawmill on Houston Mountain, a
mill that operated in the very early part of the century and perhaps before.
After sixty years, I believe there is more grass in the dandelion cover and
more fir in the aspen stands. The country looks beautiful, as it did 60 years
ago. The ground cover is now probably better. A herd of sheep were
grazing in the area during our visit. We located my name on an aspen tree
dated 8/1/36.
On July 18, 1995 we were joined by Ranger Wilson and Range
Conservationist Randy Houston. Our day’s ride took us over Dry Valley
and onto Blue Springs Mountain. The complexion of Blue Springs
Mountain has changed because of logging roads. I feel certain however
there is more fir in the aspen stands. The young firs are less than 60 years
old so most of them have come in since I worked there. The country is still
beautiful and in good ecological condition. After my two day ride I felt
good about the management the area has received. I rode Diamond, my
former saddle horse, on both days of the ride.
My personal opinion of the area is this: When the area was first grazed
with domestic livestock, probably in the 1880s it was used by both sheep
and cattle and probably heavily grazed. This resulted in depletion of the
original grass stand which was replaced by dandelion. In 1936 dandelion
occupied almost 100 percent of the ground. Once over by sheep and the
ground was bare. Subsequent lighter use has permitted the grass to slowly
return. Very early fires, of which there is now little evidence, could have
removed the original forest and replaced it with aspen. That fir is now
replacing the aspen there is little doubt. Regardless of what happened in
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�the past, in my eyes, the area is healthy today and still supporting sheep
and wildlife plus a charming landscape.
In closing this subject on sheep herding days I would like to quote from my Memoirs a
paragraph about my faithful companions, the mule Jody and the dog Pal.
Jody could be either ridden or packed. I used him mainly to pack, since
Luke was much better to ride. Luke was a very good saddle horse. Jody
had the patience of Job. One day I had my camp on him and was in the
process of moving to a new location. For a reason I no longer remember, I
was interrupted in the moving process and had to leave Jody tied to a tree
for a couple of hours. On returning, Jody was in approximately the same
place under the tree but the pack was under his belly. In fact, the top of the
pack was resting on the ground. This didn’t seem to bother Jody at all. He
just patiently awaited my return. Many times over the years, I’ve wished
some of my mules and horses to, had a disposition more like Jody.
The dog Pal was also incredible. He continually amazed me. Besides
being wonderful company and providing me with a sense of security both
night and day, he would on command, go around a herd of sheep as far as
the eye could see. Best of all I felt confident that he had gotten them all.
TB:
At the danger of messing up Barbara’s tape, I’m going to ask you a question because now
most of our students come from cities, have none of this experience. Do you have any
ideas of what the modern day natural resources or Forestry College, how can they teach
these things to their students?
BH:
I don’t know. Very few in my day had the experience I had. But it’s an important
experience. I believe that the three years I spent with the Hatch Brother’s Ranch paid big
dividends in my career with the Forest Service.
TB:
You mentioned that most, or many of the students at your time, didn’t have that
background with livestock, did Summer Camp help fill them in? Or where did they learn?
I know a lot of them went on to be distinguished foresters, they must have learned
something somewhere.
BH:
The reason I feel that my experience with ranch and farm activities paid off is because of
the positions the Forest Service selected me to fill. From Assistant Ranger through
Regional Forester the jobs were heavily range and wildlife management orientated as was
my position in the Washington Office of the Forest Service. I’m sure most people in the
organization didn’t know of my earlier experiences but some did. And most important of
all, my earlier experiences made me feel more comfortable in the jobs I was selected to
fill. Many farm and ranch raised forestry students, such as Ed Cliff and Basil Crane, did
very well in the Forest Service as did others in land management agencies as well.
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�TB:
Well, unfortunately none of us can answer that. We’re still arguing that in education now
how to teach the practical things to our students.
BH:
Yes.
BM:
Well, and also the transference from what happens at field camp into the classroom for
that whole academic year. And when you think about that—what did you take from field
camp that you bridged into the classroom?
BH:
Well, we learned how to survey land for example. We learned what fish were eating by
catching a fish and examining stomach contents. We learned how to mark timber of
different species and how to determine forage utilization by cattle and sheep. We learned
how to use portable radios and how to fight forest fires among many other things
TB:
You mentioned you had on snowshoes when that moose chased you up a tree. Was that
an assignment or just you?
BH:
Oh no.
[Tape 1 of 2: B]
BM:
Bill Hurst [continuing from tape one side A].
BH:
Dr. George Kelker’s Wildlife Management class was on a one day field trip in Logan
Canyon during the winter. We were between Tony Grove Ranger Station and Tony
Grove Lake. The snow was deep and we were all wearing either skis or snowshoes; I was
wearing snowshoes. When we reached the area Dr Kelker had chosen for study we broke
up into smaller groups each assigned to a different area. My partner was Virgil Peterson.
He was wearing skis. In the vicinity of a lake (the name of which I don’t remember), we
crossed some huge tracks.
TB:
Pipeline Lake?
BH:
Perhaps, but I really don’t remember, But we crossed large tracks. Dr. Kelker said “That
looks like a moose to me.” Neither of us had ever seen a moose so we continued on our
way. Virgil and I walked into an opening in the aspen and there he stood. [Laughing]
That’s when we took the snowshoes and skis off and climbed a tree. In a minute or two
the moose left and we went on our way. We saw that moose again the same day on the
plowed out Logan Canyon highway near Tony Grove. A week or two earlier Art Smith,
Ben Haywood and J. Lowe Sevy, all Wildlife Management students from Utah State, had
seen, what we think was the same moose, swimming in Bear Lake, from east to west.
.
BM:
Well, now you mentioned boys in that moose story. Where were the girls?
BH:
There weren’t any girls.
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�BM:
No girls in Summer Camp?
BH:
No, there were no girls in forestry school at that time. The enrollment in the Forestry
School was large but I remember no girls.
TB:
The first women went to Summer Camp in the summer of 1970, but that’s another story.
BM:
Well, let’s look at some other relationships with Logan Canyon as far as school. You
were talking about some field trips and Summer Camp as far as the time period that you
stayed up there and you explored around. When you graduated from Utah State, did you
leave northern Utah for awhile?
BH:
Yes. I left Logan for the summer of 1937 and worked until October on the Grantsville
Division of the Wasatch National Forest near Grantsville, Utah. After my senior year,
1937-38 at Utah State I returned to this same job in May 1938 and remained connected
with the Wasatch National Forest until June 1941. In the summertime, I would be
working on the Grantsville Unit. During the winter I worked in various timber jobs on the
Kamas and Evanston Ranger Districts of the Wasatch National Forest. During the pre
World War II years the Forest Service operated on a very lean budget. A couple of times
I was placed on furlough during the winter months. One winter I worked a couple of
months at a sawmill before being put back to work with the Forest Service.
BM:
Where was this?
BH:
It was down there.
BM:
In the Ashley?
BH
No, it was in southern Utah where I was raised. My cousin was a Barber and had major
interest in a Ford Motor Company. He also had a small sawmill which wasn’t in
operation. Railroad ties were in demand so a group of us put the sawmill in operation and
sawed railroad ties. I went with the sawmill for a couple of months acquiring an up
graded automobile and a little cash.
BM:
Well, and different in that you also have those certain time of year where you’re always
going to be laid off.
BH:
No, this just applied to those who didn’t have a permanent appointment with the Forest
Service and at the time I didn’t
BM:
So how did you get to the Logan Ranger District?
BH:
I worked as an Assistant Ranger and District Ranger after I left school. In the latter job
we lived about four years in Manila, Utah. I then served in the Army for two years
spending one year in Japan at the end of WWII. After being released from the military
the Forest Service assigned me to the Cache National Forest in Logan, Utah as Staff
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�Officer to the Forest Supervisor. At that time the Forest Service was in the process of
purchasing Wellsville Mountain and adding it to the National Forest System. That’s the
big mountain out west of Logan.
BM:
And what was going on in Wellsville Mountain that they wanted to incorporate it into the
National Forest?
BH:
Wellsville Mountain is a big beautiful mountain that was outside the National Forest and
had been heavily used by livestock, particularly sheep. Accelerated erosion was common
in many of the drainages. In the mid 1930s I believe, Congress placed the entire mountain
within the National Forest System and authorized the Forest Service to purchase the land
from the private land owners.
The governor of Utah at the time, [Henry Hooper] Blood appointed a committee to look
into the cause of the floods. One of the people he appointed was George D. Clyde, Dean
of the School of Engineering at Utah State Agricultural College, who later became
Governor of Utah. Another was Reed Bailey, a Geologist and later became Director of
the Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station. Another was A.R. Croft, a soil
scientist I think, from Utah State Agricultural College. He joined the Forest Service and
stayed with them until retirement. I think there were two more on the Committee whose
names I’ve forgotten. These five men were all very talented people. They studied the mud
rock flood problem and wrote several bulletins on the subject. Convincing evidence led
the Committee to the conclusion that denuding the high elevations of a watershed and
exposing it to torrential rains was the root cause of the problem. Furthermore, overuse by
domestic livestock caused the loss of the protective vegetation. When these watersheds
were perched above high population centers they posed a real threat to the population and
property below.
During my stint on the Cache National Forest I carried this program forward under the
direction of the Forest Supervisor. A substantial part of my work in the Watershed field
was in land appraisal and land acquisition. During my three and one half years on the
Cache National Forest I also became well acquainted with Logan Canyon through
assignments I had there particularly in range and recreation management.
BM:
Can I ask before you move on to range, could you talk a little bit about what it was like
working on this acquisition and this Wellsville initiative?
BH:
Yes.
BM:
Well, you know what’s interesting to me is you are saying that, and you’ve used the word
several times, that the public demanded that the federal government come in and do
something.
BH:
They did. They pushed us hard on it. And it’s interesting to note that really the National
Forest (now I’m stepping back now in time oh 30 years or more), many of the National
Forests in the United States were created not for the timber but for the water they
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�produced. There was damage being done to streams and springs and it wasn’t so much
mud rock floods as it was the consequence of excessive animal concentration around and
in the water people depended on to sustain their lives.
TB:
I want to ask a little bit more about this Wellsville Mountain. It’s my understanding that,
and it may have been before your time, in the early days the local people actually raised
funds to buy land to give to the Forest Service and that the county commission was
actually behind the acquisition. Is that true?
BH:
It is true and not too far back either. I have seen petitions in the Cache National Forest
files wherein people petitioned the Forest Service to purchase watershed lands above
their communities to protect their water supplies. This was also done at an early date in
the history of the Forest Service for watershed land on the Manti National Forest in
Central Utah. At a later date petitions from people in Ogden, Utah and other communities
and from people around the Wellsville Mountain resulted in efforts that have placed
thousands of acres under federal control. The Weber County Watershed Protective
Association and the Wellsville Mountain Watershed Protective Association were both the
results of local people’s action to secure protection of their watersheds. A.G. Nord,
former Supervisor of the Cache National Forest was instrumental in achieving federal as
well as local support for watershed programs in the intermountain area.
To pursue Thad’s question of public involvement in the watershed land acquisition
program and the role the public played in this effort, I think it would be worthwhile for
Barbara or one of her staff to review the files of the two private organizations deeply
involved. One was the Wellsville Mountain Watershed Protective Association which
once was head-quartered in Brigham City, Utah and the other, the Weber County
Watershed Protective Association which had its offices in Ogden, Utah.
If pursued, I suggest starting in the Forest Supervisors Office of the combine CacheUinta-Wasatch National Forest in Provo, Utah. Perhaps they can tell you where the files
are located.
A discussion of land acquisition and watershed management on the Cache National
Forest as well as other locations wouldn’t be complete without recognizing the positive
role Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson played in this effort. The Secretary was a
Republican, a party opposed to the expansion of federal ownership. The Secretary on the
other hand supported public ownership on land that was serving a public need. Under his
leadership the political aspects of land acquisition were substantially diminished. He also
supported the Forest Service in many other ways all of which I thought furthered the
cause of conservation.
BM:
So with you working on the Wellsville issue and you’re, I’m assuming, meeting with the
public to understand what’s going on. What other kinds of issues are going on the Cache
Forest at the time?
BH:
We did meet often with the Watershed Associations mentioned above. We also kept in
close touch with other watershed activities In addition to the land exchange work on
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�Wellsville Mountain and in the Ogden River watershed, there was an active land
exchange effort underway with the Deseret Land and Livestock Company on the
southeast side of the Cache National Forest. Much of the land owned by this Company
was situated in a checker board fashion over a vast area. The intermingling land was in
large part National Forest land. Both parties agreed that it would be in the best interest of
all concerned if the scattered land could be consolidated. The land would fare better also.
Accomplishing the consolidation would take time both on the part of the rancher and the
Forest Service. I’m not sure that it has yet been completed.
The Deseret Land and Livestock Company was formally owned by the Mormon Church.
I believe it was during the period of which we speak. It is now in private ownership. The
Church also owned a Ranch in Skull Valley on the west side of the Stansbury Mountain.
While in Church ownership it once was used as a sanctuary for a Leprosy colony.
BM:
And the objective of getting rid of the checkerboard ownership was what?
BH:
Was to create conditions more favorable to management both from the standpoint of the
private land owner and the Forest Service. It is difficult to manage 640 acres of range
land when it is surrounded by land of another ownership. So there were benefits to be
gained by both parties that was getting out of Logan Canyon but that was the work I had
to do.
BM:
So you met with the Deseret folks at the time and you looked at different value and
trading parcels?
BH:
Most of my work on this case was independently done. Our District Ranger, Clark
Anderson, was active in identifying land that would be most beneficial to acquire as well
as land that could be disposed of with least impact on National Forest interests. My two
primary contacts were with the Ranch Manager, Dan Freed and their Attorney who had
his Office in Salt Lake City, Laurence McKay. I didn’t meet with them too often. I think
Thad knew Dan Freed. Thad, Dan and I were active members of the Society for Range
Management.
The Deseret Land and Livestock Company eventually went private. Except for
occasionally meeting with their attorney and Dan Freed, I didn’t spend a lot of time with
the Deseret Land and Livestock Company; although all of the acquisition cases would
clear my desk before going to the Forest Supervisor for approval.
TB:
Just when you were making exchanges like that, how much did current condition enter
into your thinking? And how much potential? How did you reconcile those two? Say one
block of land was, had been really abused and the other was in pretty good shape. And
they both had similar potential, how did you [evaluate it]?
BH:
I don’t think we took current condition into consideration. I didn’t in land I personally
appraised.
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�TB:
That was my impression.
BH:
Yes. The senses of values were quite interesting. A fellow well along in years, who lived
in one of those little communities on the west side of Wellsville Mountain, came to the
Supervisor’s office and told us he had a section (640 acres) of land on Wellsville
Mountain which he wanted the Forest Service to have. We told him we would like to
have it, that we would appraise the property and get back to him. I did the appraisal on
this property and it came out to about $10.00 per acre. This was in the late 1940s. After
my Supervisor’s approval I went back to the man’s home and gave him the results of our
appraisal. He insisted that $10.00 per acre was too much. We finally settled for $l.00 per
acre. He really wanted his land to become a part of the National Forests.
[Tape 2 of 2: A]
BM:
This is tape two with Bill Hurst and side one. Ok, we are continuing with tape two and
we are talking with William Hurst and we have Thad Box with us. And I posed the
question based upon the Wellsville acquisition in terms of the nature of public perception
and this idea that the public approaches the Forest Service to want to have their lands
either sold to or donated to the Forest Service. And I wonder if you could give us a little
more of a context for that in terms of the public views of the Forest Service and that
relationship.
BH:
There are several areas in the Intermountain Region that I’m acquainted with where land
was placed in public ownership [chimes] with the support of the local people; in fact in
some cases, it was the request of the local people. The Wellsville Mountain is a case in
point. However, long before that, back in the early history of the Forest Service, some of
the Cache National Forest was placed in public ownership at the request of local people.
They weren’t thinking about using it for timber or for recreation or grazing. They were
thinking about it from the standpoint of maintaining healthy watersheds. And I think that
the watershed issue was the driving force behind the creation of not a majority, but a
substantial part of the National Forest system.
Even though the public in general supported the movement, both early on and in later
years, to expand the National Forests or manage those in existence to enhance water
supplies, strong leadership was required. In the case of the Wellsville Mountain this
leadership came through the Wellsville Mountain Watershed Protective Association with
Robert Stewart of Brigham City at its helm supported by a capable Board of Directors
from Cache and Box Elder Counties. In Weber County the watershed movement was
directed by a citizens group under the name Weber County Watershed Protective
Association with Julian Heppler at its head. Both groups had authority to buy and sell
land within their area of responsibility and they often did with the Forest Service being
the purchaser when money was available. This arrangement made it possible to take
advantage of land sale opportunities which might otherwise be lost. During this period of
time, the 1940s, the annual appropriation to Cache, Weber and Box Elder Counties was,
as I remember, only $120,000. Despite this modest amount the Corporations seemed to
find ways through donation to keep an energetic land acquisition program going.
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�BM:
But the debt that those two corporations then [had] that you are talking about, the debt
incurred, could that have gone on until the forest had enough money.
BH:
Yes, it’s maybe still going on. Yes, they carried over, but it was the Associations that
made this possible. The transactions didn’t get into government funds at all. The
Corporations would buy the land and then donate or sell it to the Forest Service
BM:
But the primary concern of these watershed corporations was the protection of the cities
from the mud fl, it could be stated that way, or the primary objective of the corporations
was to get this land into government ownership, so they could manage it.
TB:
I think one of the reasons you asked “why did this happen?” There was in a number of
communities that had people there that [were] old enough to have seen what it was and
how it had been deteriorated and how it was stripped off. And it was really amazing how
denuded these lands were. You can look at some of the old pictures there and you can’t
find a sprig of grass or anything. And so there were a number of citizens in almost every
community along the mountains that became concerned. Bill said that the mountain had
come sliding down on them. But I don’t think it was totally the fear, it was that they
could just remember it, that the land had been better than that. And so they wanted
somebody to take care of it, and they knew that each little individual land owner couldn’t.
The Forest Service was a mechanism that could do it.
BH:
They wanted the Forest Service to manage the land. Now there was opposition to this
from certain factions of the public. For instance, some in the livestock industry didn’t like
the general idea of public ownership of range land. However, in some cases it was the
livestock people who joined with the movement to place critical watershed lands under
public jurisdiction
TB:
Another reason that there was, I think, considerable public support, was that most of the
land wasn’t fenced in individual plots, it was open.
BH:
Yes, it was open.
TB:
It was open. And so it was essentially a commons that anybody that had livestock could
turn them out on that area. So even if you were a land owner and had a 40 acre plot or
something up there, you had no way of really using it.
BH:
Right, no way protecting it. That’s a good point.
BM:
Thanks for the clarification.
BH:
Those two Watershed Protective Associations mentioned earlier, may yet be in existence.
They did a wonderful job when they were active. Their support went far beyond the
communities they served.
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�TB:
I’m glad you brought this up Barbara because this is a good model that we ought to be
looking at in public/private cooperation. Where the private citizens decide they want
something done, and then form a cooperation to contact a government agency and then
get it done.
BH:
Yes they did. In my opinion, it would have been difficult if not impossible for the
government to acquire the critical watershed land in the Weber River drainage and the
Wellsville Mountain without the two Watershed Associations. Their reach was wide and
it extended into some deep pockets
BM:
It was demonstrating effort too from the public. When you think of a huge federal entity
like the Forest Service and how it’s growing at that time. For local communities to feel
like they have some kind of public input, you know, this is way pre NEPA. So the kinds
of input that they could have, and working on that partnership, as a way to either move
land through into ownership or move money or especially, importantly, the protective
management of that landscape. I mean that must have been a tremendous feeling to have
that kind of connection with Washington.
TB:
What I would like Bill to comment: in those days before the Forest Service wasn’t just
something in Washington (we were fighting Washington) they knew Bill Hurst, who was
down on Main Street in Logan Utah. They knew that the Forest Service personnel stayed
in one place, a good amount of time, they got to know the people and the people know
them. They were part of the community. So the local people, when they started forming
these corporations, weren’t necessarily working with the big bureaucracy in Washington,
they were working with people that they knew.
BH:
Yes, the people in the two Watershed Associations were well acquainted with Forest
Service people and had a good understanding of the Forest Service’s mission. The
Associations were holding public meeting semi-annually in communities like Brigham
City, Ogden and Logan to keep people informed of their activities and to get feed-back
from the public. Of equal importance, the Associations wanted to know what the people
were thinking. These meetings were usually well attended too.
BM:
You know one of the things that I read in your memoir, and I wish you would expound
on it a little bit when you talk about this relationship with the public, you mentioned
actually going out and riding and spending days out on the forest on horseback, with
other staff, but also with the public, some of the land users. I think some of them were
sheep herders and there may have been cattle people too. But you talked about that
relationship, how important that was, and that was something that was, I think you said
established with the nature of the way activities needed to be done in your District Office.
Could you talk a little bit more about that and with the Forest Service in Cache [National
Forest]?
BH:
A long time before I started, the Forest Service had on the Forest level, Livestock and
Timber Associations whom they would meet with annually or semi-annually to discuss
problems or situations of mutual concern. Later, multiple use associations were created
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�on many National Forests. Their purpose, of course, was to facilitate the transfer of
information between the Agency and the public and visa-versa. Such organizations are
not uncommon today. I think they’re probably more active now than they were back in
the period we are talking about. The Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act of 1960 has
probably broadened the scope of discussion.
In that regard I’d like to refer to Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson. He was
writing a letter to members of a Cattle Association whose grazing permit had been
reduced. His reply was very interesting. He explained the mission of the Forest Service
and then he went on to say something like this “the National Forests are not timberman’s
lands, they are not the recreationalist lands, they are not the water user’s lands, they are
not the cattleman’s lands they are public lands belonging to all the people of the United
States and must be managed with this fact in mind. The Secretary had it right.
TB:
Bill, you were Washington staff along about that time. When the Secretary writes a letter
today he has dozens of speech writers, drafters and so on. That letter for instance, how
did the Forest Service input get into the Secretaries’ letter then? Did you write the letter?
BH:
No I worked on it.
TB:
I suspected that. [Laughing]
BH:
I worked on it but others did also. The statement on “who the land belonged to” came
from the Secretary. He didn’t pussy-foot around when stating his opinion. While I
worked on a number of letters which he signed the Secretary usually discussed them in
the formative stage with the Chief or Deputy Chief who was Ed Cliff. The Secretary was
very fond of both men. I did accompany Mr. Benson when he met with some livestock
interests in the field and took him on a five day fishing and sightseeing trip into the High
Uinta Primitive Area. In my opinion he was a great man and an excellent horseman. As a
fisherman he wasn’t so hot. So I put him on a lake where he couldn’t miss. In later years
my Grandson would say, “Grandpa taught the Prophet to fish.” In the Mormon Church
the Church President is our Prophet.
BM:
Well, a question I have for you is: do you remember a favorite place in Logan Canyon?
BH:
Logan Canyon is all special to me. It’s a beautiful canyon. The stream is just
unprecedented. I do remember a couple of incidents about Logan Canyon though, that
always impressed me. One of them had to do with the stream itself. The Bureau of Public
Roads wanted to upgrade a portion of the road through the canyon. That was, I think the
time you [Thad Box] were at Utah State and I was in the Ogden Office of the Forest
Service. The Bureau of Public Roads hadn’t at that time come around to recognize the
value of streams and what might damage them. They wanted to build a road where it was
the least expensive and the best alignment from the standpoint of automobile traffic. On
the other hand, the Forest Service and the University people, led by Dr. L. A. Stoddart
wanted the stream to have first priority. I should also mention Dr. D. I. Rasmussen. He
and the entire Forestry School faculty were deeply involved. They wanted the road to go
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�where it would have the least impact on the stream, but still make an acceptable road
through the canyon. This developed into a first class battle between the Bureau of Public
Roads being on one side and the Forestry School faculty and the Forest Service on the
other. Eventually the latter prevailed. The decision was a popular one with the public as
well.
TB:
The publication that came out of that “Road Construction and Resource Use” is the only
paper that I know of that every faculty member in the College of Natural Sources signed
up on. I mean in the whole history of it. And it started as you say, with L.A. Stoddard and
Jess Lowe went up the Canyon to go fishing one day and found a bulldozer parked in the
river where they were going to fish. And they came back down and got a hold of Dean
Turner and said “We got to do something about this.” And so they got the whole faculty
together and we had meetings, and I was just a young guy on the faculty there. But we
had a number of meetings and came out with that publication. And like you say, there
was a battle there. And it’s still going on.
BM:
What’s the time period you are talking about?
TB:
This is about 1960 as I recall that that publication came out.
BH:
It was somewhere between 1958 and 1962. But I’ll tell you, the Forest Service was sure
glad to win this one. It posted a sign that all road construction interests paid attention to.
[Tape 2 of 2: B]
BM:
We are on tape two, side two with Bill Hurst and Thad Box.
BH:
In reading this you must remember this road issue stretched over two or more years. It
didn’t happen while I was on the Cache National Forest. I was in the Regional Office at
the time as was Dr Rasmussen.
TB:
I think there’s a point here that it is important to get, whether we are talking about the
Wellsville or Logan Canyon, it’s important if there’s a problem that people see and agree
on. And the Forest Service and the University have no problem coming together to study
Logan Canyon and the river; if they say that there’s a common problem. And you don’t
worry about budgets, you don’t worry about personnel, you just go out and do the job.
BH:
Yes. That’s right.
BM:
And the perception of the public at that time too, of these two agents working together.
Can you tell a little bit about that?
TB:
Well, the perception of the public, I was just a young faculty member then and don’t
remember. But the public mostly wanted that road constructed.
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�BH:
Oh, yes. The public definitely wanted the new road. However, I don’t believe they
realized the impact it would have on Logan River if constructed to the original design.
TB:
I think if you’d put it to a vote, the Forest Service and the University would have lost
because people wanted to drive faster over to Bear Lake. It was something that was going
against public opinion at the time.
BH:
I agree; there is no question about it. And that’s the case on so many issues that come up
when public land is involved. There’s a certain group that’s really pushing and their voice
seems overwhelming until you expose the entire picture. Then, if your position is logical,
it changes and sometimes radically. I think most everyone now appreciates more than
ever the value of Logan River, values that would have been lost had the road been built
just to accommodate speedy automobiles.
Well, one other point of interest that took place in Logan Canyon more recently was the
Range Wars of the 1950s. The Forest Service reduced the amount of grazing by 20
percent on the Logan Canyon Cattle Allotment. At the same time there were reductions
being made on other National Forests in the Region. While many people applauded the
actions of the Forest Service many did not. The Forest Services actions were appealed in
a number of cases in both Utah and Idaho, some of them going to the Secretary of
Agriculture for a final decision.
The primary issue was the question of what land on the National Forests could be grazed
in a way that was compatible with other resources on or adjacent to the land being
grazed. The issue boiled down to a determination on each grazing unit (allotment) of the
land that could be grazed on a sustained program without damaging other important
values. The term “suitable” was selected to describe such land. Other regions in the
Forest Service were using the word “useable.” This word was unsatisfactory in our
opinion because most land can be used by livestock if other values are ignored. Our
definition of “suitable range land” was, “Land which can be grazed on a sustained basis
without damage to the area itself or to adjacent areas.” With this definition being applied
the issue of suitability became the crux of the grazing problem. It was decided this issue
was worthy of a research effort. We welcomed this as did Utah State University and
many in the livestock industry. Wayne Cook from the School of Natural Resources at
USU was especially supportive as was Weldon Shepherd of the Research Branch of the
Forest Service. Logan Canyon was chosen as the location for the research project. Ralph
Crowell, Supervisor of the Cache National Forest and Wayne Thorne, Director of
Research for USU would provide direction for the research. Wayne Cook from the
School of Natural Resources, USU and Weldon Shepherd, Director of Range Research
for the Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station would design the program
and give direction to its application. The Forest Supervisor, Ralph Crowell, appointed
Hallie Cox to represent him on his study committee. The Committee and the range
management scientists who helped them, put in about two years on the study of rangeland
suitability for livestock grazing. When the studies were completed the issue of suitability
seemed to evaporate. It is my opinion that people on both sides of the issue were
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�convinced that the cost of capturing the forage in an acceptable way from these difficult
to reach or sensitive areas was far greater than the benefits gained.
BM:
So did suitability then become more of a policy?
BH:
Yes, in Region 4 [Forest Service ‘regions’] they still use the term “suitability.” But in
Region 3 where I later worked, I could never get them to use the term.
TB:
You couldn’t?
BH:
No, I couldn’t. The Chief’s Office used the term “useable” rather than “suitable” and it
had become so ingrained in their thinking and in their instruction that it is difficult to
change. I believe the use of the term “useable” is one of range management’s major
problems. A cow goes where she has to go to get her belly full. She has no concern for
the damage she might cause in getting there.
TB:
Well, I learned something. I thought it [suitability] was in common use everywhere.
Because I came in right at the end of what Bill is talking about. I got my appointment
right at the end of that study. And all the classes I taught, I used suitability. And it’s in
their text book and I thought it was the widely used term now. I didn’t know Region three
still or Region four.
BH:
Well, I believe Region 3 still uses the term “useable” while Region 4 uses the term
“suitable” which in my opinion is by far the most descriptive of the message the user is
trying to convey. I think I understand Thad’s frustration also. He came into an area where
“suitable” was the acceptable term and one he was most apt to pick up.
TB:
So the basic argument was that suitability is a subjective thing. It depends on the three of
us here. We would each have a different opinion. Or usability, you could measure. But I
don’t buy that. As a policy of directive and I think suitability makes a lot more sense.
BH:
Yes, “suitability” is much more acceptable in my opinion.
BM:
Does suitability eventually have criteria?
BH:
Yes, it has criteria.
BM:
. . . that soil and water and re-growth and vegetation …
BH:
Yes. Suitable for grazing means the forage on the land can be harvested by livestock
under a level of management the livestock owner can afford, without unacceptable
damage to other resource values The ‘adjacent areas’ is critical in the definition because
that means the areas that are otherwise suitable for use can not be reached without
unacceptable damage to other areas of land.
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�TB:
To answer your question more specifically, the criteria and standards were developed by
individual agencies. So they would differ and I’m finding out that even within them, the
agency, and the society for Range Management has tried a time or two to try to get a
standard criteria across all the private and public lands, and they haven’t been able to do
it.
BM:
That’s interesting. Alright, we are going to end this tape today. It’s about 2:30 [PM] on
Wednesday, finishing the interview with Bill Hurst. To be continued.
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�
http://highway89.org/files/original/2d91a674268b6fda189b31097293174c.mp3
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PDF Text
Text
LOGAN CANYON ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
William Daly Hurst
Place of Interview: Bill Hurst’s Room, Cottonwood Creek Retirement Center; SLC, Utah
Date of Interview: 16 April 2008
Interviewer: Barbara Middleton
Recordist:
Barbara Middleton
Recording Equipment:
Radio Shack Cassette Tape Recorder: CTR-122
Transcription Equipment used:
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Chelsea Amdal
Randy Williams (4/15/09), Barbara Middleton (4/24/09), Bill
Hurst, Randy Williams (7 July 2011)
Brief Description of Contents: Bill Hurst’s experiences growing up in Panguitch, Utah, where
his father was the forest ranger; his experience working for a sheep outfit, schooling at Utah
State Agricultural College, and work with the Forest Service, including in Logan Canyon.
Reference:
BH = Bill Hurst
BM = Barbara Middleton (Interviewer; Interpretive Specialist, Environment &
Society Dept., USU College of Natural Resources)
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with
brackets. Mr. Hurst reviewed the transcript and made a few changes; however, these changes are
not indicated, so the transcript and the tape may not match at all times. Mr. Hurst’s personal
papers are located in USU’s Special Collections MSS 362.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 2: A]
BM:
We are here on Wednesday, April 16th [2008]. My name is Barbara Middleton; I am one
of the interviewers for the Logan Canyon Land Use & Management Oral History Project
of Utah State [University]. And we [Thad Box and Barbara] are here visiting with Bill
Hurst at the Cottonwood Creek Retirement Center and we are in his room which is just
full of Forest Service memorabilia and artifacts and we are here to capture some of his
stories from the Logan Ranger District as well as some of the other areas. We’ve got
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�about thirty minutes on this first side and then we will stop and take a lunch break and
come back and continue. So you are going to be my timekeeper Bill. Ok?
BH:
Ok.
BM:
What I’m going to have you do is introduce yourself with your full name and your birth
month and year and tell us where you were born.
BH:
My name is William Daly Hurst. I was born in Parowan, Utah, Iron County on October
the 5th 1915. My father was a forest ranger on the Dixie National Forest at the time I was
born. And he was, a year or so later after my birth, he was moved to Panguitch Utah and
given a job on the Panguitch Lake Ranger District. He put his entire career on the Dixie
and what used to be the Powell National Forest. They are combined today.
BM:
The Powell National Forest and the Dixie?
BH:
And the Dixie, but mostly on the Dixie. He worked on the Powell before I was born. And
he never moved and he lived in his home in Panguitch. He built the home. And he and
mother lived there all of their life. And my dad worked for the Forest Service for about
38-39 years.
BM:
So you grew up as a child of a forest ranger?
BH:
Right. And another distinction that I like quite well is my grandfather was a Forest
Officer also. He had an interesting beginning. He joined the Forest Service in 1905 and
he was an engineer by training. Born and raised in Scotland. In 1905, Gifford Pinchot, the
first forester in the United States, and President Theodore Roosevelt were instrumental in
establishing the National Forest system. And of course they were looking for people that
could survey land and I think that was the primary reason grandfather was selected early
on—because he had his early training in engineering, so he could run boundary lines and
survey that and map it out.
[Stopped tape]
BM:
Ok, I just stopped the tape for a moment because we want to back up a little bit and we
are talking about, Bill’s talking about his grandfather who was born and raised in
Scotland. Would you give us his full name?
BH:
My grandfather’s name was William Radkin Hurst. And my father’s name was William
Miller Hurst. And my name is William Daly [Hurst]. And I have a son named William
Johansen [Hurst]. The Williams carried down and they’ve always given--the middle
name has always been the mother’s [maiden name] of the person being named.
BM:
So Johansen is your wife’s family name.
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�BH:
My wife was a Johansen, so our son is named William Johansen. [Chimes in the
background.]
BM:
Now your grandfather, you said, came from Scotland and as an engineer was valuable for
with what was needed in the Forest Service.
BH:
Right. When I say he was an engineer, he had some training in the use of engineering
equipment. And he wasn’t a graduate from a college of engineering if they in fact had
those in that day. This would be before 1905.
BM:
Right.
BH:
But he was skilled enough that he was a Beaver County Engineer. So he was selected;
and back in those days I understand that Gifford Pinchot played a role in the selection of
that first cadre that came in. So my grandfather was known quite widely as a ‘Pinchot
Man’. I think Pinchot actually made a contact with him in those early days of Forester
Service. My grandfather . . . we’re really talking about surveying boundaries of the
National Forest. You understand, Barbara, I am assuming some of this stuff because he
never told me. But I do know that he surveyed a lot of the boundaries of the National
Forest when they were first selected.
BM:
Was it mostly down in the southern Utah area then?
BH:
Well, it, most of it was in the Southern Utah area. And I think that was a skill that got
him involved in the Forest Service. He stayed, my grandfather, stayed with the forest
service until 1913, and during that period of time he was a supervisor of the Beaver
National Forest, which was headquartered in Beaver [Utah] and that’s where he lived.
Later the Fillmore National Forest headquartered in Fillmore, Utah, was added to the
Beaver National Forest. He became supervisor of the two forests. Then later on in 1913
they added those two forests to the Face Lake National Forest, which was headquartered
in Richfield, Utah.
BM:
Ok.
BH:
And they asked grandfather to be supervisor of that forest and move to Richfield. He told
them that with 12 children he couldn’t make it on a supervisor’s wage, which was very
small. And he said at Beaver “I have a little farm where I keep the boys busy. They raise
a lot of our food and get our wood that we used to heat the house and so forth.” So he
resigned from the Forest Service and he went back to his job as County Engineer for
Beaver County and that was in 1913.
BM:
Ok. So your dad grew up the child of a Forest Service family also?
BH:
Yeah he did. And my father William Miller Hurst he joined the Forest Service in 1910,
after he passed the rangers examination. He was stationed on the Dixie and Powell
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�National Forests. He worked about 38-39 years in the Forest Service and retired—in I
think he retired in 1948 or [19]49.
BM:
And he was mostly in Southern Utah. You said he was in the area of Parowan,
Panguitch?
BH:
He was District Ranger in Parowan, Utah when I was born. Then about 18 months later
he was transferred to Panguitch, Utah. And he lived his career out in Panguitch, Utah.
But while he was there he was ranger on three different Ranger Districts; they transferred
him around.
BM:
So your love for forest, the Forest Service, the outdoors, is in your genes.
BH:
It is. I think that’s right.
BM:
For many generations. Now with your, with that kind of experience, was there any other
choice, did you have any other fields of interest? Because I thought I read something
about a medical possibility somewhere along the way.
BH:
No.
BM:
No, ok.
BH:
No, that was never in my plans. However, my oldest son, in fact both my sons started out
in the school of natural resources up in Logan. Neither of them stayed though, in that
field. The elder son, I think spent 2 or 3 years at school forestry up in Logan. And the
younger son has spent 1 or 2 years in that field. And the oldest son went into biology, so
that he’d qualify for dental school or medical school. The other son worked for the Forest
Service a couple of years while he was going to school of Natural Resources, but he quit
that and thought there was a brighter future in Computer Science. So he went into
Computer Science and that’s where he makes his living.
BM:
Probably a good choice.
BH:
Yeah. He worked for Hewlett-Packard. And he lives here in Salt Lake City.
BM:
Ok, so you have mentioned two sons. One that’s a dentist in Bend, Oregon another that is
at Hewlett-Packard. Are there other children?
BH:
I have three other children. I have a daughter who is second child in my family of five.
And she lives east of here in a town near Heber, Utah, [called] Midway. She’s a graduate
of Weber State College [now Weber University] and she put in a career in Education.
Most of her career was in the public schools. She became an Assistant Superintendent of
the Utah County School District. And then she left that job and went and taught at BYU
for three or four years before she retired.
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�BM:
Ok. And she’s number two.
BH:
Yeah.
BM:
So number three?
BH:
I was going to tell you a little more about number two. She was…
BM:
What’s her name?
BH:
Her name’s Kathleen. She married a fellow named Hughes. She was very active in the
Mormon Church and she was selected by the president of the Church to be the 1st
counselor to the President of the Relief Society—that’s the woman’s organization. And
she served a five year stint as 1st counselor to the president of the Relief Society and that
really placed her on the General Board they call it, and is a top level administration. You
may know more about this than I do?
BM:
I don’t know that much about it so…
BH:
It was really quite a special calling for her. And then number four.
BM:
Oh wait, we missed number three. Who’s the third in line?
BH:
Oh yeah, number three. Number three is another daughter and her name is Linda. And
she married a man named Bryant Nelson. He was a Utah State graduate. And they live in
Hewitt, Texas near Waco. Both of them work in retail business. I’m not sure the name of
the people they work? Bryant works for a big store complex in Texas, it’s similar to
Walgreens (Walgreens would be here). His wife works in a business that supports that
group. I think her job is setting up displays in the store around the country.
BM:
She must be very creative. And then number Four?
BH:
Four is another daughter and she is another graduate of Utah State.
BM:
A lot of Aggies here. That’s great. [Bells chime]
BH:
Yeah, there’s four Aggies.
BM:
And her name?
BH:
Her name is Helen. She married a fellow named Tom McKay. She teaches school in
Edmond, Oklahoma. Her husband just retired from the Fish and Wildlife Service. He was
a biologist.
BM:
And so number five.
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�BH:
Number five is a son Carl.
BM:
BH:
That’s Carl? [pointing to a picture]
His name is Carl Johansen. And he’s in computer science.
BM:
That’s the computer person.
BH:
Yeah and he’s at Hewlett-Packard.
BM:
Well, from what I’ve read in your memoirs, these names are going to come back through
because I think it was your first, now where’s your first son? What was his name, the
dentist in Bend [Oregon]?
BH:
His name is William, William Johansen.
BM:
I think there’s a horse story somewhere along the way that we want to hear, about one of
his horses.
BH:
Yeah. He’s got all kinds of horses.
[Stop tape]
BM:
Alright, so we have the children, so how about your wife?
BH:
My wife was living in Grantsville, Utah. Her name was Emma Johansen. But everyone
called her Dolly. She went by that name her entire life. I met her when I was working on
the Wasatch National Forest out in Tooele County. I spent four, parts of four years, out
there and became acquainted with her and married her in 1941. She was with me 41 years
before she passed away of liver cancer, which took her fast.
BM:
So you mentioned the nickname Dolly. Do you know how she got that name?
BH:
I don’t really know how she got that name except that, you know family stories. She
came from a family of, first place her dad was an immigrant from Scotland [thinking,
correcting self] Sweden. From Sweden, he was a Swede. And he married, he wound up in
northern Utah and how he found her [Dolly’s mother] out in Grantsville I don’t know, but
he did and they were married oh about 1905 or] 6 I think. They had seven children and
my wife was the last one; she was the 7th. The story they say about her, about the name
Dolly, is that her mother was so glad to see this little girl come into the family that she
called her “My Dolly.”
BM:
Oh that’s sweet. So were all the other siblings’ brothers?
BH:
Oh there was one girl up near the front. One big sister that was about the 2nd one in the
family I think and then Dolly wound up being the 7th.
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�BM:
Five brothers to grow up with.
BH:
Yeah, five brothers.
BM:
Ok so what we have here is we have Swedish descendants and we also have Scottish
descendants. You said that your, just to finish up this side in the family, your grandfather
came over from Scotland. And do you know any geography in how he got to Utah? How
did he come in?
BH:
Yeah I do. He came with his parents, my grandfather Hurst, when he was about 18-19
years old. He came to Utah as a Mormon convert with his mother and dad and two
sisters. When they reached the United States the church [Church of Latter Day Saints] of
course, met them, I guess at New York, and they sent them to Utah. They sent them here
to Salt Lake City; there was a mother and father and the one son and two sisters.
BM:
How did they travel?
BH:
When they got to New York I think they traveled by train. Then when they got to Salt
Lake City the Church sent them to Beaver County. I say Beaver County because they sent
them to a little place that was just under settlement then, Greenville, I think they called it.
And my grandfather, he did quite a bit of education and he was picked up right away to
teach school. And that’s where he met my grandmother. She also came from parents who
immigrated as Mormon converts to the Church. And she in fact, she was one of his
students for awhile. They were just two years in age that separated them and they were
married and they had a family of 12 children.
BM:
So a family of 12. And he’s the one that eventually becomes then the engineer.
BH:
Well, he was the one that could do engineering work. Now I don’t know how much
training he had had in it but you know training in those days was a lot different than it is
today. And for doctors it is also. But he raised a family of 12 children which is a big
family.
BM:
It is.
BH:
My mother was raised in Panguitch, Utah. She came from a family of 12 children also.
Her name was Katie May Daly; that’s where I get my middle name. She was a school
teacher in southern Utah. She got her education in Cedar City, what is now the College of
Southern Utah [Southern Utah University], but in those days it was just a two year
institution. She met my dad who was a forest ranger in the Parowan/Panguitch area and
they were married in 1914. They raised three children which I’ve already described. My
mother came from a family of also 12 children.
BM:
Those are big families in those days.
BH:
So we had lots of relatives.
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�BM:
Oh, I’ll bet. We’ll we are almost finished with the end of the tape so let’s stop here and
then we will go on to the next section.
BH:
Ok.
[Tape 1 of 2: B]
BM:
Ok, we are continuing on tape one side two with Bill Hurst. It’s just after a lunch with
Fred and some of his other friends and we are going to continue on with Bill’s [story],
how he got to USU, the influence of USU in his early training, and also within those
college years some of the work that he did in the summertime, which was very important
for later on. So Bill, would you tell us a little bit about how you decided to go USU and
some of your influences there?
BH:
I think that I had in my head a long time before I went to college that I was going to Utah
State Agricultural College. The reason I say that is that I don’t remember ever thinking
about going to either BYU or the University of Utah. Why I didn’t think of that I don’t
know, but I didn’t. I always looked forward to going to Utah State. I think one of the
reasons I was attracted to Utah State was that quite a few of the young foresters who
would show up on the Dixie National, the Powel National Forest, the area’s where I
lived, had been graduates of Utah State. And I admired them and the work they were
doing. I think I mentioned earlier that I had engineering in mind and I did right up until
almost the last moment too. I even took engineering classes that I didn’t need to take,
because of the influence [chimes] of the Dean of the School of Engineering, George
Clyde. But nonetheless, I wound up in Forestry and majored in Range Management.
BM:
Now were there some influential people as far as either professors or other folks that
[influenced you]?
BH:
There wasn’t any particular person that got me interested in Utah State or forestry for that
matter. Although, looking back my dad and my granddad had an influence on me that I
can’t deny. Even though I didn’t look at it that way at the time, but they were both
foresters. And they loved the Forest Service and they just had to have an influence on the
choice I made. Although I had some very close relatives who had done very well in
engineering and they pointed me in that direction also. My dad’s younger brother,
Howard, he was an engineer out of the University of Utah, and did very well in life.
In the 1930s when I started to college, we were in a big depression in this country.
Thousands of men were out of work and jobs were very scarce, particularly in small
communities like Panguitch. So there weren’t many opportunities to find a job and so I
took a job with Hatch Brother Sheep Company in Panguitch, Utah. The first summer
which was 1934, which was the year I graduated out of high school, they used me mainly
in their fields and with their haying crops and irrigation and to herd their buck sheep.
Their buck sheep were kept away from the female sheep all year long until the fall time
when they were turned with the ewes for breeding season. Somebody had to look after
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�the bucks during the summer when they were grazing on local ranges. To make sure they
were in at night and not straying. So that was one part of my job, but hay and irrigation
comprised a big part of my work.
BM:
Now let me ask you a question on that because that sounds different than some things that
I am familiar with. But you are saying that as part of a sheep range grazing, they are out
during the day but then they are brought into an area at night?
BH:
Yeah, the bucks. That’s the buck sheep. The reason that’s important is that if they get out
they might wander off to where there’s a herd of sheep; then get into the ewes’ too early
and they have to be pretty exacting on when they do the breeding because that affects
when they shear and when the lambs are born and when they do the docking of the lambs
and everything else.
BM:
So it’s very timed?
BH:
Yeah it’s very timed. In fact it was almost the exact date every year when they turned the
bucks with the ewes’ and then the lambs would all come about the same time.
BM:
What time was that?
BH:
Well, the lambs would start to come in the last of February the first of March. It was what
they call ‘range lambing’ in those days. The lambs weren’t, I mean the ewes’ weren’t put
in sheds or barns to have their lambs. They were, they dropped the lambs right out in the
open range. They couldn’t have a lot of real severe weather that would freeze the little
lambs. So it was a pretty exact science as far as breeding was concerned. And that’s why
they had to keep control of the bucks. Nonetheless, I wound up looking after the bucks a
part of the year and helping with the hay crops and the irrigation of the alfalfa fields with
the Hatch brother’s sheep company.
The first summer after one year of college, I went back and they put me out on the range
with the herd of sheep. And I spent the month of June what they call lambing the sheep.
And that’s when the ewes’ were having their babies. By the first of July the lambing was
over and they went through a process of two or three days they’d take the lambs and all
the sheep to a corral. They would dock the lambs, which meant cut the tails off of all of
them. If they had ear mark, they do marked the lambs. They would castrate the males and
put a brand on all the ewes; put a fresh brand on all the ewes. And that took a couple
three days. And after that process was over the sheep would go to the summer range. The
summer range that I was on for two years was, most of it, was quite a distance from a
road. I’d have to take a pack horse along with my bed and groceries and I had a saddle
horse to ride. And of course I had a dog; it was a wonderful companion
BM:
And was that Pal?
BH:
That’s Pal. I can’t believe how much help he was. I was sleeping in a tent way out alone.
Well most of the time, I never worried a minute about him coming in the tent. Pal slept
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�right along the foot of my bed. And if anything happened he’d growl and wake me up.
And he did that quite frequently when a coyote came near the sheep.
BM:
BH:
So some of the hazards would be coyote, what else would be worried about?
Bear. We were worried about bear. However, I never had a bear get in my sheep. But I
did worry about it because that occasionally happened and usually a bear would inflict
big time damage on the lambs. They seemed to kill them just for the fun of killing them
you know.
BM:
Ok, not necessarily eating them
BH:
No they weren’t eating them. The coyotes would just have a little bit. But usually a
coyote would eat it, eat the lamb or drag it off some place.
I thought of a story. One night in the middle of the night my dog had waken me with a
deep growl and I picked up the lamp and put my clothes on and he kept walking outside a
little ways and then he would come back in the tent. The hair on his back was standing up
and he had this deep growl which I seldom heard him make. I thought for sure a bear was
out there in the sheep; although the sheep weren’t moving. You can tell when they move
because the bells will tinkle. The bells that were on the sheep—[the ones] that had bells
on them. And they weren’t tinkling which indicated that the sheep weren’t moving. But
old Pal continued to bark and walk ahead of me a little bit and then come back. And that
hair was still standing up on his neck which indicated something pretty bad.
BM:
Were you nervous?
BH:
I was quite nervous. I took my 30-30 rifle. And I walked down the trail. We were a long
ways from the road. I went down the trail and this dog would walk ahead of me a little
ways and then come back and then walk ahead, come back, all with that deep growl.
Finally, about a mile from camp, I heard a faint call say “Bill. Bill.” and then I knew
someone was trying to find me. But I knew it wasn’t a bear. [laughing] I was relieved in
that respect, but I was more concerned because what in the world would somebody be
looking for me at 2 o’clock in the morning? And I thought “my folks.” I thought
something’s happened to my dad or mother or my sister. And they’re trying to find me.
What in the world would they be out here in this time of night if it wasn’t something
serious. And so that made everything else like bears, coyotes, seem trifle.
So I kept walking down the trail and the voice came louder and louder and finally we
met. And it was a friend of mine from Utah State University that had a summer job with
the forest up at that country. He had been out marking timber. He left early in the
morning from Panguitch Lake and went out to mark timber. He broke down, his car
broke down on the way home and he knew that I was in the vicinity. His name was Bill
Thompson. Finally, I ran into him and he told me his story. Well we moseyed back up to
the tent and both of us crawled in the bed and went to sleep. And got up the next morning
and had breakfast after the sheep were settled. Then I took him, I had a mule and a horse
there and we saddled both [chimes] of those animals up and went back to the highway
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�where his car was. And it still wouldn’t run. So we waited until a car came through and
he got a ride to Panguitch Lake. And I went back to the sheep herd.
BM:
Now, I want to go back to a part of that story because you made a comment about the
sheep having bells. But only certain ones had bells. Who do you decide to put the bell
on?
BH:
Ya know, I don’t know. I never put bells on any sheep myself. They were already on the
sheep when I took over, so I can’t tell you that. But I do know that bells were very
important for two reasons. One is the dingling would tell you where the sheep were. And
then if, I think they had a bell on about a 1 in every 50 sheep. And there were 1200 sheep,
so you would have 24 bells. And in addition to that they kept so many black sheep in the
herd. And the black sheep were kept in the herd to facilitate counting them. It would be
difficult you know, for anyone to count 1200 sheep plus the lambs and there’d be more
than 1200 lambs because a ewe usually has two lambs. So there would be 1200 plus. But
these belled sheep and the black sheep are what are known as counters. So when the
herder brings the sheep in to bed them at night, he’ll count. He’ll count the blacks and
he’ll count the bells if he can do it. Sometimes you can’t count the bells because they
might be in lie down so you don’t hear a tinkle. But you have the bells that you count
sometimes. But you always count the blacks. If you have say 24 blacks in the herd and
you count 24 blacks you can be reasonably certain you got your herd. If you are missing
one, you better go look, hunt. You know you got a job the next day, trying to find the
other black.
BM:
So it’s kind of like sampling.
BH:
Yeah it is; it’s the same thing. And so that’s the reason they have blacks and bells. And of
course the bells tell you where the sheep are too. They are valuable in that respect.
BM:
Interesting. So these were, this was the Hatch Company was your summer job. Was this
each summer that you went home from college?
BH:
I’d go right to the sheep when I got home, maybe stayed home for overnight or
something like that. They were anxious for me to come because they were in the middle
of lambing and they needed the [help], you know if I was going to work for them all
summer they needed the help right now.
BM:
But you were put out with the herd and you were responsible once the lambing was done
and some of the other things that you talked about with castrating and some of the other
jobs. Then you were put out with the herd in a meadow?
BH:
Oh no, not the meadow. It was just mountains just like these mountains.
BM:
So tell us about the landscape you covered.
BH:
The what?
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�BM:
The landscape that you were in.
BH:
Well, it was a mountainous landscape, there was lots of aspen, lots of pine trees, quite a
lot of spruce and fir and there was some quite large and deep canyons. Mammoth Creek
went right through the area. It was well isolated. The Hatch brothers had three herds and
one herd was on the south of me, one herd was one the north of me. The herd on the north
of me was headquartered in what they called Castle Valley and that had a road running
through it. And the sheep foreman had a sheep wagon there and he’d bring his wife and
his little girls up to stay with him during the summer time. And he would move that
camp. It was a big valley, a big, great huge valley, that had plenty of area that were the
sheep could graze all summer long. So he’d be there and take care of the sheep. But he’d
be home every night. And once a week at least he’d ride over to the camp I was in, and
the camp that my partner was in, the same man both years, was in the other camp. And
he’d ride over to make sure we had salt; we had to salt the sheep at least every two days.
BM:
And why is that?
BH:
Well, they just needed salt. A lactating female will die if she doesn’t have salt.
BM:
So it was just a common nutrient that they need.
BH:
Yeah, well, that’s an ingredient of milk you know. And milk cow you have to have salt
before her all the time because, as I said, if they don’t have salt they die. So he had to
make sure we had salt every couple of days and he’d come over at least once a week and
sometimes more often and bring us salt. And he’d bring us groceries. And on each trip
that he’d make to our camp he’d say “what do you need now for the next week in the way
of groceries” and you’d always have an inventory ready for him.
BM:
So what kind of things did you order?
BH:
Well, they were quite limited. They didn’t include candy bars or anything like that. We
made sour dough bread. That was made out flour and baking soda and put a little sugar in
it. And this fermented flour and sugar thing and you know what sour dough is?
BM:
Yes, I love it.
BH:
Yeah I love it too. That was a basic thing and we always had bacon. And they tried to
keep us in eggs. And we had, we ate lots of beans and we ate lots of rice. Rice and
raisins was a favorite dish.
BM:
A hot dish?
BH:
Well, it could be either cold or hot. You’d cook the rice and put some raisins in it and
they’d swell up. You know. It made really a good dish, I still love it. Put a little salt in it
and usually it was cold. Then you’d put some canned milk on it and we’d always have
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�canned milk. Oh it was good food; I loved it. I still love it, cheaper food. And
occasionally we’d kill a mutton. They had a few, oh a mutton and they were males that
had been castrated and they’d let them live over a year so they were a year old or better.
When we would kill a mutton the camp herder would usually split it three ways: he’d
take part of it and give the other herder part of it and me part of it so we could eat it
before it spoiled.
BM:
Because I was going to say you would have to store that some way.
BH:
Well that was kind of a unique thing too; we used to put it in a seamless sack in the day
time and rolled it up in the bed. Then at night we’d hang it up. Have a rope on it that was
up over the limb of a tree if there was a tree around, and hang it up above the fly line and
flies don’t go way high. We’d drag it up and let it hang out all night. And the nights were
at that elevation, 8,000 to 9,000 feet, would be quite cool. Then bring it down in the day
time and put it in a seamless sack and wrap it up in the bed again. So it would go in the
bed quite cold and stay pretty cool all day. We had good mutton to eat. And I don’t know,
my mother used to send me up cookies once in a while when somebody was coming in
my direction.
BM:
What kind of cookies?
BH:
Oh she was great on the sugar cookies. And I don’t know if she ever made chocolate chip
or not. I don’t remember. But I’d like that. And dad would bring some apples once in a
while. We ate pretty good at the sheep camp.
One of the owners—it was three brothers that owned these sheep. And one of the owners
had a son named Delosh, and once in a while his dad would bring him up and let him stay
over four or five days with me. He was quite a lot younger than I, but he’d come up and
have a good time. Incidentally, he called me here not a week or two ago, but a month or
so ago. He was up here with his sister. And we thrashed over the old sheep herder days.
BM:
What fun to catch up like that!
BH:
Yeah, he lives in Canada. Well, that’s about the way the sheep herding went. I had that
job for two summers. In the 3rd summer I started working for the Forest Service.
[Tape 2 of 2: A]
BM:
This is tape two side one, April 16th [2008] and we are here with Bill Hurst continuing
our interview and we are talking about sheep herding as a summer job in college. Bill,
you mentioned two years with sheep herding and then in the summer of [19]36 is your
forestry camp?
BH:
I had herded sheep that summer [1936] and the summer camp, the first summer camp that
Utah State University forestry school held was in 1936, the fall of 1936. It was about a 6
to 8 weeks camp; I’ve forgotten the exact length. It started about the first of September.
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�BM:
So I had to leave the herd, sheep herding job, a little early that year to get up to Logan
and go to summer camp. Then, immediately after summer camp of course, school started.
So I entered my junior year of college.
Would you tell us a little bit about summer camp since some of us don’t have the
experience of that.
BH:
Well, it was really quite an enjoyable time as far as I was concerned. I think there were
35 to 40 young men there. They had a wonderful cook, a man and wife team and their
name was Cooley: Mr. and Mrs. Cooley. He was an excellent cook and so was she. And
she was a motherly type lady; she was appreciated by all the boys you know. They liked
to visit with her and tell her their troubles and their experiences as well. It was a very
helpful camp also because we were out in the field and we were doing things that we’d
probably have to do if we went to work for the Forest Service; like survey pieces of land
and put out forest fires. Radios were just being adopted that were two way, two-way
radios. We learned how to operate the two-way radio and we learned how to mark timber.
BM:
So was that timber cruising?
BH:
Well ‘cruising’ is where you estimate the volume of the timber. We did that also yeah.
Then we learned which trees out of the stand you would mark in different species of
timber. Where we had access to different species of timber, we’d actually go out and
select the tree that we thought should be cut and mark it somewhere. We didn’t do any
cutting or anything like that. We just learned which trees out of a stand should be cut,
depending on their new crown and how large they were and how thick they were, and cut
them so that you’d release the smaller trees and get the old trees out that weren’t putting
on any further fiber. So in many respects it started preparing us for the work that we
could expect to do in the years ahead, if we were in forestry. We also learned how to
estimate utilization on grasses and forbs and learn which of those plants cattle and sheep
would prefer. Just a general review of Forest Service activities, out on the range, in the
forest.
BM:
Can we go back to when you say estimate utilization of the range. Explain that to a nonrange person when you say that.
BH:
here are several ways they do that. One is, and the most accurate job anyway but one that
takes time, is to have a cage out at strategic locations, and they called these key areas.
That’s key areas where the livestock generally go to graze. Have cages out there that
prevent the livestock from eating that grass, [like exclosures to keep animals out of a
particular area]. These might be 3 feet in diameter, sometimes they have permanent
fenced areas that are about a rod square: 16½ feet square. A lot of those are put in
permanently so they are never utilized. But they use a lot of cages out that are just
annually put down. And then the animals will eat around them. The most accurate way is
to take a pair of scales out and clip the residue on the outside down to what you think is
proper level and weigh. Then clip the similar area inside the cage and weigh that. And
compare the two and you get a percentage utilization that way. If you do this enough you
can make fairly accurate estimates of utilization just by walking through the country.
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�When I was ranger I did very little clipping, I’d just go out and look at a piece of country
and could tell almost as well by estimating how much was gone. Because I knew that the
heavy stuff would be on the bottom and the lighter stuff would be on the top. And if they
take it down within two inches you know they haven’t gotten half of it yet. And so you
do a lot of estimating. But that’s the way they determine plant utilization. A lot of people
say “well that couldn’t be very accurate” but I disagree, it is quite accurate. Livestock
people and the forest ranger, whoever’s doing work for the Forest Service, they get pretty
good at estimating the percent of forage that’s gone from an area. Each vegetative type
usually has a maximum and a minimum standard. So if they get down to the minimum
standard you know they’re taking too much. And the maximum maybe they’re not taking
as much as they could. That’s the way she’s done.
BM:
Now this is the college of forestry at the time?
BH:
Yes.
BM:
And you were at forestry summer camp, so is there also an area [of study] that is helping
you look at watershed or wildlife or some of the other aspects that I think of today that
are part of the college. Where was that kind of thinking?
BH:
We took classes in that. The only difference, well by the time we got to the period we are
talking about we had a division, I mean a School of Wildlife Management and a School
of Range Management as well as a School of Forestry. Now they got a school of
Recreation and other things and Watershed Management and so forth. But when I started
school in 1934-35, we just had the School of Forestry. It was headed over by the head of
the School of Forestry by the name T.G. Taylor, doctor. We had Paul Dunn, he taught the
forestry classes. And Dr. [can’t remember his name] oh dear, anyway we had a fellow
that taught range management and he also taught dendrology, like the study of trees. And
he taught some classes in—[remembers name of professor] Raymond Becraft. He was the
other professor. Those three fellows pretty well handled the School of Forestry which
existed in those days. Sometimes they’d get graduate students to come in and help, like
teach some of the classes. You’d go to the botany building to learn about plants, identify
plants and all that stuff. And you’d go to soils building, where they specialized in soils to
learn about—to take your soils classes. So it was a pretty well rounded out program, even
before they divided the School of Forestry into these three divisions. When we got Dr.
Rasmussen for wildlife, he created a Wildlife School that was just one of the best in the
country. And Dr. Stoddard: Ely Stoddard, he set up the school of Range Management
which also was widely recognized as being an excellent school. That’s the one that I
chose to graduate in. Since then of course they’ve expanded that and they have this
School of Watershed Management now. And they have some others.
BM:
The wild lands, which range and forestry are incorporated into that, and wildlife is in that
also.
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�BH:
Yeah. That’s kind of like it used to be when I first joined, they were teaching them all and
they were all meshed in together.
BM:
Well when you talk about that several times in your book, you talk about the importance
of understanding the inner relationships.
BH:
Yeah, you have to do that.
BM:
Some of it was from a predator-prey standpoint. And some of the others were just the
watershed standpoint with grazing, grazing management and watershed systems.
BH:
The watershed condition is the key to good management. If you don’t have control over
your watershed you don’t have good management on the land. So they give a lot more
attention to watersheds now than they used to. Although watershed has been important,
you know that’s what you’re talking about when we talk about all these flash floods that
came off these mountains. That was just watershed management.
BM:
And that was a strong part of what was going on in the landscapes around you that you’re
seeing as a student.
BH:
Yeah. All those big floods, and I say all of them, not all of them by any means, were
taking place during that period of time. Some of them were taking place during that
period of time. And they were terrific floods and, of course, they don’t happen as often
anymore as they used to happen. And that’s really because they have better watersheds.
BM:
So some of the places that were infected were like Ephraim and where else?
BH:
Well, there were a lot of them up on the Wasatch Front, between Ogden—well let me
see. It was that country—it was north of Salt Lake City and between there and Weber
Canyon.
BM:
Layton area?
BH:
No, but maybe Bountiful and through there. There were a lot of those floods taking place
down around Manti and through that country where the Great Basin forestry range and
experiment station, through there.
BM:
And that would be Ephraim right at the bottom of that canyon. Now at that time also with
the camp experience, how many students are we talking about being enrolled? What was
the class size like at summer camp? [chimes]
BH:
Oh at summer camp? Well, I think I mentioned that earlier and I’ll probably contradict it
now. But, I don’t remember the number I gave you before but, I think it we had around
40 students up there the first year.
BM:
So you’re camping in the old CCC buildings that are there.
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�BH:
Right.
BM:
And you are using quite a large area of Logan Canyon, of the upper Logan Canyon, are
you using primarily right around the camp?
BH:
Primarily right around the camp; although we took excursions out from the camp,
different places. The University owns a big section of land up there. A lot of it was taking
place that was right behind the old CCC camp where we were staying. We’d hike up and
over the top of that hill and do a lot of our training work up right within, well, inside of
the camp.
BM:
Is that now called the Ted Daniels Forest?
BH:
Yeah I think it is.
BM:
Alright.
BH:
Yeah that’s it.
BM:
Were you at the University when Ted was there?
BH:
No. He came after. I used to have fun with Ted. He was ours for many years you know.
He was a really permanent fixture at the University. He was recognized and honored
quite a few times. I’d kid him once in a while and say “Yeah I remember when you
came.”
BM:
When he was a young guy.
BH:
Yeah. So I remember when he came, and I can too. Yeah I was graduated before he
came.
BM:
And he made that one hill famous. What did he call it? Benchmark Hill?
BH:
Yeah, that’s Benchmark Hill. You’re right. Well, the hill’s named after him now isn’t it?
Ted Daniels Forest Hill. Yeah he’s quite a guy. He did a lot for the school of forestry too.
BM:
Bill, you’ve been talking about your USU experience and summer sheep herding and
your forestry camp experience. We are going to finish up for today, so would you
summarize for us the importance, the experience, some of the ways that USU prepared
you for your first job in entering into a profession in forestry and range?
BH:
I started to work for the Forest Service in the summer of 1937. That of course was before
I graduated. I worked until the latter part of September that year and then I returned to the
Utah State University to graduate in the spring of 1938. I went back into in June of 1938,
I went back into the same job that I’d left the previous fall.
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�BM:
And what job was that?
BH:
That was called administrative guard on the Grantsville division of the Wasatch National
Forest. It’s out west of Salt Lake City towards Wendover. I was on Stansbury Mountain,
which was an isolated mountain standing out in the desert, but it runs from lake level
which is about 4200 feet to 10,000 some odd feet in the air above timberline. It’s a
magnificent long mountain; it has all of the life zones clear from, oh south desert, desert
shrub to tundra, above timberline. So it was a wonderful place to work. There was no
timber to cut on the forest, there was timber, but they didn’t cut any of it except few poles
and things like that. But it was a big range management job and the country was alive
with deer. So I gained a lot of experience in range management and wildlife management
while I was on that district.
After I returned in 1938 they assigned the Vernal Division of the Uinta National Forest to
me and it later became a Ranger District. A few years after I left, they consolidated this
Vernal Division and this Grantsville Division, which I’d been on. They consolidated
those together and made a ranger district out at Tooele, Utah. Since that time, it’s been a
part of the Wasatch National Forest. Now I understand they’re going to put all three of
those forests together.
BM:
Right. The Cache, Wasatch, Uinta.
BH:
Yeah. So I enjoyed another three years on those units. I should say however that there
were periods when I would be laid off. During the next three years there were periods
that they’d just run out of money to pay someone. And when that did happen they would
put me over on the main part of the Wasatch National Forest out east of Salt Lake up
around Kamas and Evanston and Granddaddy Lakes and [I would] work mainly in
timber. Selling lots of timber crops in those days: that’s mining crops.
Then there were huge insect control job projects going on. I worked on those and became
superintendant of a 200 men crew up in insect control one year. In fact, I had that job
when I got my permanent employment with the Forest Service.
BM:
What kind of insect control were you doing?
BH:
It was the mountain pine beetle. It was in lodgepole pine well, mainly lodgepole pine.
There were tremendous attacks and killed a lot of lodgepole pines. But they’re still going
on you know? Colorado’s complaining all the time now about insects taking all their
trees. I’ve about reached a conclusion that that isn’t too bad. We can’t use it; the forest
has to turn over and that’s the way that nature has for turning them over.
BM:
Uh huh.
BH:
The only trouble, and the thing that bothers lots of people, is they’re burning up a
valuable resource that you can make gasoline out of now. And then big fires get into
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�them, into this dead timber, and sweeps out of the dead timber and into live timber, you
notice those downsides to it, too. But on the other hand, the forest is turning over. We just
never have been able to use all that timber, no matter how much or how badly we’d like
to see it utilized. You got to have a place to use it. And then, I’m jumping ahead quite a
few years now, but when I was supervisor of the Ashley National Forest we sold the
largest crop timber sale that was ever made in the United States. We were so proud of
that. We thought, boy this is really going to make an inroad into all this old rich
lodgepole pine. You know those trees that don’t grow too big in diameter but they grow
up straight and you can cut a lot of crops out of them. Well, we just got that timber sold at
a good price—not only the largest sell but it brought the biggest amount of money. They
got to bidding for us and they went way high, the timber operators did. Within ten months
they had invented what they call the screw bolt process, I mean a plate screw process.
Where they take a big old square piece of heavy iron and they’d run a couple of holes
through that then they’d put that up in the top of the mining shaft and screw bolts through
these holes and up into the crevices of the coal. Then [they] take huge wenches, they had
down there, and tighten them up and put that plate right up solid against the coal mine,
the top of the coal mine. That protects it as well as those mining props were doing and a
lot cheaper. The bottom fell out of the [timber] crop sales. People who had bid these big
high prices, we had to make some adjustments and do it fast. And cancel a sale under,
you know you’re not supposed to do that really, but we were forced to do it. Like when I
say we were forced, what could a poor guy do? He can’t sell his crops.
BM:
It lost it’s economic value.
BH:
Yeah, well, yeah it lost it’s economic value. Well, that only compounded the problem that
we had and have an overabundance of this over mature stuff. So what are you going to do
with it?
[End of first interview]
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�
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Hosted by: Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library
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William Daly Hurst interviews, 16 April 2008 & 11 February 2009, and transcriptions
Description
An account of the resource
In Bill Hurst's first interview, he discusses his experiences with the Forest Service: (father and grandfather both worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Utah), including Hurst's service in the Logan Ranger District and the Cache National Forest in Logan Canyon. Then in the second interview he shares his experiences growing up in Panguitch, Utah, where his father was the forest ranger his experience working for a sheep outfit, schooling at Utah State Agricultural College, and work with the Forest Service, including in Logan Canyon.
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Hurst, William Daly, 1915-
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Middleton, Barbara
Box, Thadis W.
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Hurst, William Daly, 1915---Interviews
Hurst, William Daly, 1915---Family
Hurst, William Daly, 1915---Career in Forestry
Logan Ranger District (Utah)
United States. Forest Service--Officials and employees
United States. Forest Service
Hurst, William Radkin
Hurst, William Miller
Forest rangers--Utah--Biography
Mormon converts--Utah--Biography
Utah State University--Alumni and alumnae--Interviews
Sheepherding--Utah
Utah State University. Forestry Field Station Camp--Anecdotes
Forests and forestry--Fieldwork--Utah--Logan Canyon
Forests and forestry--Study and teaching--Utah--Logan
Utah State Agricultural College. School of Forestry
Watershed management--Study and teaching--Utah--Logan
Range management--Utah
Forest reserves--Utah
Cache National Forest (Utah and Idaho)
Becraft, Raymond J.
Benchmark Hill (Logan Canyon, Utah)
Grazing--Utah
Watershed restoration--Utah--Citizen particiapation
Deseret Land and Livestock Company (Utah)
Public lands--Utah
Wellsville Mountain Watershed Protective Association
Forests and forestry--Multiple use--Utah--Citizen participation
Benson, Ezra Taft
Roads--Utah--Logan Canyon--Design and construction
Roads--Utah--Logan Canyon--Public opinion
Grazing--Cache National Forest (Utah and Idaho)
Grazing--Research--Utah--Logan Canyon
Utah State University. School of Natural Resources--Research
Forest ecology--Utah--Logan Canyon
Range management--Utah--Logan Canyon
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Oral histories
Interviews
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Logan Canyon (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Iron County (Utah)
Beaver County (Utah)
Dixie National Forest (Utah)
Panguitch (Utah)
Utah
United States
Salt Lake City (Utah)
Salt Lake County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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2000-2009
21st century
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eng
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 3 Fd. 4 & 5
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Inventory for the Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection can be found at: <a href="http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php">http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php</a>
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of the USU Fife Folklore Archives Curator, phone (435) 797-3493
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Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection
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6 April 2008
11 February 2009
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2009-02-11
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Logan Canyon Reflections
-
http://highway89.org/files/original/89644726e757b60fcb0c622a3f31f574.mp3
33f6694d0c31f329016de79339ef1a11
http://highway89.org/files/original/b319cc667d8ea2f93cac957897690c68.pdf
be77c82fb32e3c01d576317a6d69ed62
PDF Text
Text
LOGAN CANYON ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee:
Fred Knowlton
Place of Interview: Conference Room in Sociology Department
Date of Interview: 28 April 2008
Interviewer:
Recordist:
Rebecca Smith
Rebecca Smith
Recording Equipment:
Marantz PMD 660 Digital Recorder
Transcription Equipment used:
Power Player Transcription Software: Executive
Communication Systems
Transcribed by:
Transcript Proofed by:
Chelsea Amdal
Randy Williams (14 July 2011)
Brief Description of Contents: Fred Knowlton talks about his growing up experiences on the
family farm in Springville, New York, his family’s educational pursuits, and his experiences
with coyotes and the environment.
Reference:
FK= Fred Knowlton
RS = Rebecca Smith (Interviewer; USU graduate student)
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops
in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with
brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[Tape 1 of 1: A]
RS:
So Fred, I would like to start by asking you to tell me your full name.
FK:
Ok. Frederick Frank Knowlton.
RS:
When were you born?
FK:
11/24/1934
RS:
And where were you born?
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�FK:
I was born on a farm in Springville, New York. That’s the western part of the state, south
of Buffalo.
RS:
Could you talk about being born there and growing up there.
FK:
As I mentioned I grew up on a farm. Started working on the farm when I was six or seven
years old. And from the time I was seven until I left for college, I guess I was responsible
for the family cow. Milking it twice a day and taking care of the feed and everything. But
I was actively involved in, it was essentially a truck farm, a truck and poultry farm, we
had about six hundred laying hens and then we grew cabbage and sweet corn. And one of
the more unusual things is we had up to four acres of gladiolus that we used to sale as cup
flowers. So it was sort of a diversified operation, all outdoors.
RS:
This was your family farm?
FK:
This was a family farm.
RS:
What was your father’s name?
FK:
His name was Frank.
RS:
Frank Knowlton?
FK:
Frank Eldore.
RS:
And your mother?
FK:
Eva Elizabeth Reith Knowlton. And she was born in Hungary. Came to this country in
1907 or there abouts, the exact date is a little bit uncertain.
RS:
And your father was he from New York?
FK:
He was from New York; lived most of his life in and around Buffalo. Actually
Lackawanna and Woodlong and so were the two areas where he grew up. My parents met
at Cornell, which is sort of an unusual back in say about 1920. And he taught for a year
down at Farmingdale on Long Island and then decided that teaching wasn’t for him. He
went back to the city of Buffalo and found a farm, a small farm. And that’s where they
settled for 56 years.
RS:
Did you have siblings that also helped with the farm?
FK:
A brother and sister.
RS:
You took care of the cow, you say, and milked it twice a day. What did they do?
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�FK:
We all worked on collecting the eggs and taking care of the chickens. That was some of
the routine stuff. And then my sister and I were probably the only ones that really worked
the farm. My brother was interested in other things and he went into engineering and that
sort of thing.
RS:
So how long did you work on the farm on a daily basis?
FK:
Oh it probably would have been it was until I was 18.
RS:
And your sister…
FK:
And my sister also. And you know, we don’t give that generation much, too much credit
at times, but my folks must have done something right because they raised three kids. My
sister was the slacker in the group because she was salutatorian of her high school class.
Her two brothers were valedictorians.
RS:
I don’t know if I would call her a slacker then…
FK:
Well, we have to remind her of it. And then one of our favorite pictures is a picture my
aunt took when we were, my sister was about 3 and I was 4 and my brother was probably
8 at the time. But we were sitting on the front porch of the house and it looks like 3 dead
end kids. It’s just a rag-tag crew. But many years later we were all back visiting the folks
at the same time and we took another picture, with all of us in the same pose that we were
in the original picture. And then we just printed it.
06:08
Our brother was PhD Cornell, oh no, MIT, I forgot what the year was. And my sister was
PhD Cornell University. And mine was PhD Purdue University. And so we just sort of
laugh about these dead end kids that all ended up with PhDs. I think my folks did that,
and I don’t think they ever netted more than $5,000 a year off the farm. In this day and
age it’s hard to conceive of that sort of thing going on.
RS:
Did they encourage your education? Or was this something…
FK:
Well, I mean it was one of those things that just, it was understood. I mean it was not a
question, it was not, you were not asked. It was when you got done with high school you
went to college, period. And we never questioned it, we just, just did it.
RS:
And it sounds like it worked for you. So your siblings went to Cornell, but you ended up
at Purdue, how…
FK:
No, I, we all got our bachelor’s degrees from Cornell. One of the things my dad said was
“You can go to college anywhere you want, but the first year you go to Cornell.”
RS:
So we were talking about your education and growing up on your family farm. How long
did you live in New York?
07:20
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�FK:
I lived in New York until I was probably 22 or 23.
RS:
And then where did you go?
FK:
And then I headed off for a Masters degree at Montana State College at the time and got a
Masters in Wildlife Ecology. I worked briefly then with the Montana Fish and Game
Department. And then was accepted into a PhD program at Purdue University, under the
advisorship of Durward Allen.
RS:
So what did you study at Cornell then?
FK:
Wildlife Management.
RS:
Wildlife Management at Cornell. And how did you get interested in that?
FK:
Well, I guess coming out of a farm background and when I wasn’t working the farm I
was out poking around in the bushes and playing in the woods and seeing what was going
on, watching the animals and that sort of thing.
RS:
Do you have any particularly interesting stories about your forays into the woods with the
animals?
FK:
Oh, not particularly then. Some of the more interesting things is after I went in college, as
I was taking Wildlife Management but not totally sure that that was the definitive thing.
And one day I remember sitting in the lab, was part Taxonomy lab, and studying plants.
We were trying to classify various specimens and things. One of the people in the row in
front of me was David Mech; we were sort of casual friends but particularly in clubs at
that particular time that was a day in spring. And one day he turns around and said “Say
did you hear about the black bear project that they are going to do in the Adirondacks?”
And I said no. Well, he said, “Well, that guy up there on the 3rd row is a graduate student,
and he is heading it up. Why don’t you ask him if you can get on the research crew?”
And it turned out that I said “Oh that sounds interesting for the summer.” So I queried
him and he said “Well we only have funds to higher two people.” And almost on spur of
the moment we got another thought. I said for “Room and board you got a third.”
So it turned out that to make everything good and legal, it was room and board and a
dollar a day. And that’s sort of a ridiculous thing to do because I had to make money to
go to school at fall: to pay tuition and everything. But that experience in terms of things
that happened that summer, were set the sails and the rutter and everything else, for a
whole career. But you may not be aware, but David Mech went on to become one of the
foremost wolf biologists in the country. And I took a slightly different track and ended up
spending my entire career studying Coyotes.
RS:
So with that black bear research, what did you end up doing?
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�FK:
RS:
Were you fearful?
FK:
No. We weren’t old enough to be fearful. Actually, black bears are fairly docile and they
are more apt to run away than anything else or not at all aggressive.
RS:
So I’m just going to recap a little bit to make sure that I have your story down pretty well.
So you grew up on a farm and that sort of sparked your interest in animals and wild life
and plants. And so then when you decided to college you went to Cornell and you studied
Wild Life Management. And then while there, that’s when you met David Mech. How do
you spell his name?
FK:
MECH.
RS:
MECH; Okay. And he told you about the project that would be going on in the
Adirondacks with the black bear and so you did that for a while.
FK:
I actually did it for two summers. I got paid a little better the second summer.
RS:
That was good. With your experience you could hold out for some more huh?
FK:
It was actually, the people with New York Conservation Department were essentially
helping that we could tag 5 or 6 bears during that 1st summer. And that summer, Dave
and I were pared teamed together and we just run the Adirondacks and we ended up
trapping and tagging 60 bears when they expected 5 or 6.
RS:
Wow. Ten times their expectations
FK:
And before it all got said and done, I like to say that I had a hundred and 67 notches in
my bear trap before that part of my career ended.
RS:
So you did that at Cornell? And you graduated with your undergraduate degree there: a
Bachelor of Science in Wild Life Management. Did you meet people there who were
particularly influential in shaping your career?
FK:
15:39
Well we were trapping and tagging bears primarily, and it was before the days of
telemetry and everything else. We had very crude techniques for subduing bears and
tagging them and measuring them, and weighing and all that.
I met a few people. But it wasn’t particularly on a, well I say it wasn’t on a professional
level. I did meet people like C.W. Severinghouse and E. L. Cheeton, but they were higher
up in the New York Conservation Department and they knew of this crew and everything
and they came to visit us, but it wasn’t much beyond that.
And then my advisor at Cornell was, undergraduate advisor was Oliver Hewitt and there
isn’t much exceptional in terms of undergraduate relationship, but eventually after I got
my PhD and was working for the US Fish and Wildlife Services, he was going on
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�Sabbatical and he needed somebody to teach his courses. So I took a leave of absence
from the Federal Government and went back to Cornell and taught his courses for a
semester.
RS:
Did you enjoy that experience?
FK:
I enjoyed it. But at that time I had a full time research job, with the Fish and Wildlife
Services. I opted to stay in full time research as much as possible.
RS:
So when did you get interested in coyotes then? Was that at Cornell?
FK:
No, my first experience with coyotes was in New York. It was during the fall of 1956.
We had been asked to go back into the Adirondacks Mountains in late September to try to
catch another bear or two. And I remember Dave each night camping out in the cold
frosty night with stars everywhere. Suddenly a bunch of coyotes took off yipping and that
was my first exposure to them. But subsequent to Cornell I went to Montana State
University. And did masters on moose in the Gravity [?] Mountains. And then after that I
went to Purdue. I was recruited by Durward Allen to do a study in Texas, which involved
predation problems with coyotes and deer on the Wardler Wildlife Refuge in South
Texas. So that was my first real experience with coyotes.
RS:
So Durward Allen was at Purdue and he was your?
FK:
He was my advisor. Graduate advisor from my doctoral dissertation.
RS:
Ok so he got you working on a project with coyotes?
FK:
Yeah, with coyotes.
RS:
And you said it was because they were attacking deer?
FK:
Well, he just said that there was this neat area in Texas where they had a lot of deer and
they had coyotes and wild turkeys and that stuff. And he just sent me down there and for
a summer I had to figure out what I was, or carve out my study program. It involved the
study of the relationship between coyotes and deer. And try to interpret it.
RS:
Can you talk more about that experience?
FK:
Well it turned out that I decided that if you wanted to understand the impact of coyotes
on deer you needed to understand the deer. So that study involved primarily looking at
the feeding patterns of coyotes, to determine when deer were vulnerable and what portion
of the coyote diet the deer comprised. And then it was a matter of studying the deer in
terms of looking at age, structure and survival rates, and reproductive rates for the deer.
And so I actually spent more time studying the deer than I did the coyotes. But I became
very much interested in the coyotes. And then after I completed my degree, I was hired
16:43
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�by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to continue ecological research on coyotes. And that
was in Texas. I was stationed in San Antonio at the time and I was there for some eight
years. And as most people are aware, most of Texas is private land and private ranches.
And working’s a little bit difficult. And primarily of sheep predation; problem sheep and
goat. And I finally convinced, after about eight years, I convinced directors of the
National Wildlife Research Center that we needed to be directing a bunch of this research
on public lands. That was a subterfuge. Because when I was in Montana I knew about
mountains and snow on top of them year-round. All the time I was in Texas I knew that
just over the horizon there were mountains that had snow, and that I was trying to come
back. Through the graces of, essentially, Fred Wagner, who is also in the College of
Natural Resources. He was Associate Dean at the time. He had started a coyote study in
Curlew Valley and he had come down to talk with me about how, things that could be
done, or how to go about doing something. Eventually, he was instrumental in getting me
to transfer the whole field station that we had in San Antonio to Logan. We’re associated
with the College of Natural Resources here, but we are still federal employees.
RS:
So what valley was that you said?
FK:
Curlew.
RW:
Curlew: how do you spell that?
FK:
CURLEW. And that’s immediately north of Great Salt Lake, in the vicinity of Snowville.
RS:
So you came there directly from Texas.
FK:
Well, I came to Logan, but he was doing, conducting some coyote/ jackrabbit studies in
Curlew Valley. And that was in 1972. And about that time he sort of got out of the study,
stopped his involvement with the coyote and jackrabbit studies in Curlew Valley and our
program took them over. And we pursued them for another 20 years.
RS:
So were you teaching here at the university when you came?
FK:
No, I was primarily doing research and was administering the official wildlife service
program on coyote research. Primarily ecological research, but there are some
management implications related to looking, trying to understand coyotes in relation to
their jeopordations on sheep and trying to find ways of minimizing those jeopardations.
RS:
So can you talk about some of your first experiences then here in Logan and Cache
Valley or Curlew Valley?
FK:
Well, a lot of things have changed since then. Obviously some of the first part was just
trying to understand both coyotes but also understanding the sheep industry. And at that
time they used to, the sheep industry in Northern Utah, has a tendency to graze the
mountain ranges in the summertime. And then they move the sheep out to the desert for
the wintertime, and they graze out on the desert during the winter. When we first moved
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�here in 1972 they used to trail the sheep from, they used to come out of Green Canyon
and trail across the valley and some 60 miles out to Curlew Valley and other areas in that
vicinity. And the convention of wisdom at the time was that the coyotes followed the
sheep out there. When they moved the sheep the coyotes went with them. When we
started to understand that coyotes are territorial, they said it doesn’t make any sense for
the coyotes to be following the sheep. They are locked into a partial ground that they
defend. So what was happening was the sheep were going from one coyote territory to
the next. And the reason that the people thought the coyotes were following them, was
that they kept getting jeopordations as they went. But subsequently the one study I did in
the Bear River Mountains themselves was looking at, there was also the feeling that
coyotes migrated in the winter time with the deer herds. Because people found coyotes
among their deer winter range during the winter time. But again from a biological
standpoint it didn’t make sense to us to think that here you have a territorial animal, that
they would abandon that territory and follow the deer, when they outa be out of their
territories during the breeding season and whelping season. Well, the breeding season and
whelping season is right in the dead of winter.
RS:
What’s a whelping season?
FK:
That’s when pups are born. And so we had a study which specifically looked at whether
coyotes changed their location from summer to winter. Summer because it mates. There
was a great deal of criticism at the time that from some segments of the public thinking
that they are hunting coyotes in those high mountain areas in the winter time and there
aren’t any sheep there. And there’s no jeopordations going on. The question is whether
they were really getting the coyotes that were causing problems or were they just out
there killing coyotes because that’s when they could do it. Our research essentially
showed that the coyotes that are moving winter include the coyotes that are there in the
summer. And the coyotes tend to, there was no net change in the altitudinal levels in
where the coyotes were in the winter time compared to summer time. But that doesn’t
mean that there weren’t coyotes congregating around the wintering areas of the big game
animals. But I’m reasonably sure that was that were transient animals that were not
attached to territories yet. They were essentially kicked out of there natal, the areas where
they were born by their parents. And they were out looking around for other areas to go
into and also a place to get groceries.
RS:
So when you made it here to Logan, I was just wondering about your own family, if you
had started your own family by this time?
FK:
Yes, I had…
RS:
Could you talk just briefly about that?
FK:
All my children were born in Texas: one in Corpus Christi, and one in Sinton, Texas and
two in San Antonio.
RS:
And where did you meet your wife?
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�FK:
Via the U.S. mails; a friend of a friend. She was going to West Virginia Wesleyan. And I
met her and it was just as I was starting my PhD program. I knew I was going to be going
to Texas for a couple years. And I said well either you decide to go together or you just
go your separate ways. So six months after I met her we got married and the honeymoon
was a trip to Texas and all the years there after.
RS:
So then you came as a family here to the [Cache] Valley. Do you have any family land
use traditions?
FK:
Well, I grew up on a farm.
RS:
Yeah, but with your own family here ?
FK:
Here we did not. As a matter of fact, I have been … as I was getting ready for retirement
back in the early 90s, well around 1990, I, having come from a farm I wanted to return to
a farm. And I wanted to have animals. And I knew that I couldn’t. I really have a
preference for South Western Montana, but I knew I couldn’t get ready for that thing in
arms length away. So we eventually, in 1990, bought the small farm in Northern Cache
Valley; and acquired a small flock of sheep. And by that time all my kids were grown and
through college. But I’ve been roundly berated for not having done that earlier.
RS:
Not having gotten your farm earlier? By who?
FK:
Not having gotten the farm. It is primarily my youngest daughter who dearly loves
working with horses. And we didn’t have much of an opportunity for that when she was
growing up.
RS:
What kinds of things did they do as kids growing up? Did they do much with the land?
FK:
Not really. We lived in, at that time, we lived in the North East bench here in Logan
adjacent to Lundstrom Park, before it was a park. And they pretty much did typical youth
activities in the valley. I mean in terms of school activities and things of that sort.
RS:
So your small farm that you bought in 1990 then, is that where you still are in Cornish
[Utah].
FK:
Yes, a non-commercial enterprise.
RS:
And so you have sheep. Do you have other animals?
FK:
We had some horses. Actually now its one horse and we board two others for somebody
else. That’s all it is. We are raising, the flock is geared specifically toward, to provide
wool for my hand spinning interests. So we have essentially three breeds of sheep:
Corriedale, Romney and Romeldale. Which are quite three different specific types of
wool: white and colored.
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�RS:
And then you can, do you send your wool to someone? Or do you do the …
FK:
No, we sell it there at the farm. Or we go to fiber shows, primarily the one in Idaho Falls:
the Snake River Fiber Fest. And there is another one now in Salt Lake, which is the Great
Basin Fiber Fair. But they are all craft people essentially.
RS:
So how’s the farm?
FK:
What? It’s delightful! It was an old decrepit farm that needed a lot of fixing. In my wife’s
words (when she saw it and I indicated I wanted to buy it, and all it had for a house at that
time was a building that had been moved there, had been retired as a railroad section
house in 1930). And my wife said, “Seems to me we are just moving backwards.” But a
few months later she said, “Why did we wait so long?”
RS:
Oh that’s great. So then what are some of your hobbies and recreational pursuits?
FK:
Well, number one is if you have a farm, you don’t give up the day job. And so the
hobbies and recreational things are primarily taking care of the farm. And I did retire
about a year ago. But for 15 years or so or 16 years we kept the day job to support the
farm.
RS:
Right. So you retired from the university about a year ago?
FK:
Well, I actually retired from the federal government.
RS:
From the fish and…
FK:
Well, it’s a long story but, well, I was employed by Fish and Wildlife Services, initially.
Then in one of their inspirations in 1986 the US Congress transferred the whole animal
damage area from the department of the Interior: The Fish and Wildlife Services, to the
US Department of Agriculture. So I technically retired from the US Department of
Agriculture. But I was still associated with the same, the National Wildlife Research
Center, which was the research arm dealing with the problems associated with wild
animals.
RS:
And is that your connection to the university then?
FK:
Well, my connection to the university is sort of a happy agreement. We have a
cooperative agreement where they agreed to house us and give us staff status and let us
serve on graduate committees and serve as major advisor of graduate students; that sort of
things. So that went on between, from 1972 till 2007.
RS:
So now your full time profession is farming or ranching?
FK:
Well, sort of. I still come into the office three days a week or thereabouts.
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�RS:
I think a lot of people do that. It’s hard to give it away.
FK:
Well, trying to wrap up. I mean I’ve got, when I look at the, I’ve identified 25 research
papers that need to be written. I mean they’ve already got the date and stuff. Obviously
all of them aren’t going to get written, but hopefully a major part of them will.
RS:
So I asked you about some major people who were major influences in helping you make
the choice in getting into wildlife management and into farming. But were there other
things that influenced you? Like certain classes that you took? Or books? Or maybe some
leaders or anything like that?
FK:
Well, initially when I was probably in junior high school, I had an aunt that gave me a
subscription to Natural History. And that sort of, well through that I sort of developed a
gradual interest in, I mean, I was always interested as I was out seeing in the wild I mean,
on the farm, and I used to trap muskrats for income when I was in my early teens. And I
just gravitated in that direction. And [as] I said, I went to Cornell and I didn’t get a full
head of steam in the reading in wildlife, I mean I was taking courses and liking it. But it
was the research work of the black bears in the Adirondacks that “This is the way we’re
going.” And then you start getting wrapped up in some of that stuff.
And the new stuff was interesting and they coyote stuff became REALLY fascinating to
me when we started looking at the population ecology of coyotes; because virtually
nothing was new about it. People just thought coyotes were just out there running willynilly around and we found out that: no they aren’t. They have their own restrictions. They
are limited to their own part of the universe. I mean they have their own territory and they
stay pretty much within it. Except when they’re bored and they get to be juvenile
delinquents. That’s why they split, and try to find a place of their own. And most of them
don’t make it. I mean probably 9% of them simply don’t make it to become full- fledged
adults. But that’s a pretty common thing in all of wild populations. In order for a
population to sustain itself the breeding parent only has to replace itself in its lifetime.
You know to bring another pair of animals up to breeding age. And when you realize that
they can, that they own a territory they can produce probably 25 or 30, 35 pups in their
lifetime. Only two of those will survive. And we are talking averages obviously.
RS:
Ok, what was your earliest memory of Logan Canyon then to be more specific?
FK:
My earliest memory? Well, I mentioned that Fred Wagner had visited me in Texas and
had talked us into funding one of his research projects. And so in the summer, I can’t
remember which summer, in the late 1960s, I took the family on summer vacation. And I
remember that we came up and camped in Rocky Mountain National Park; and then over
in western Colorado in a place called Lincoln Park. Then I remember we drove across
southern Wyoming before the days of I-80. And I remember coming around Bear Lake
and then turning at Garden City and climbed up over the ridge and cruised down Logan
Canyon and we stopped at a campsite. What’s the name of it? Not Woodside? [Wood
Camp] It’s right where the Juniper Jardine trail turns off; I can’t remember the name of it
right now. But we camped there and got some pictures of the kids sitting there, they were
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�probably 2, 4 and 5, or something like that at the time. Then we came on down out of the
rest of the canyon then met up with Fred Wagner. Then he and I and his graduate student
went out to the west desert, but that was my first experience with my introduction to
Logan Canyon.
RS:
So beyond your first experience were there any areas of Logan Canyon that you visited a
lot or were most active in?
FK:
There were some areas, like the areas like the sinks that were pretty during the summer
time. And there are some other areas back up in the city of [inaudible] ground, and Herd
Hollow those areas. I have not spent much time there in the winter time other than skiing
at Beaver Mountain; a past time that has now gone by the boards.
RS:
Were most of the activities you did in Logan Canyon personal then?
FK:
They were very personal. The only professional activity was, involved the one study
when we were looking at the altitudinal location of coyotes in the summer verses winter,
which was a study done by a graduate student Glenn Gantz.
RS:
How do you spell Gantz?
FK:
GANTZ
RS:
Do you have a favorite place in Logan Canyon?
FK:
Not a single.
RS:
This goes in a little different direction but are you a member of a religious community?
And if so does your religious affiliation effect your land use beliefs?
FK:
I currently belong to the Presbyterian Community Church in Preston, Idaho, which is the
closest church. It’s [inaudible] to our farm. Our farm is right on the Utah/ Idaho border
and Preston’s closer than Logan so we affiliated. And they seemed to need us a little
more than Logan did.
[Laughing]
RS:
Do they have certain beliefs about the land?
FK:
It isn’t anything that is identified specifically as land other than a general concept of
stewardship. And it’s a matter of … when we are talking about stewardship we are
talking about not only stewardship here now, but in perpetuity. You know, it’s for future
generations as well as for what’s going on now.
RS:
So how do you think you or your activities have contributed to land use change and
policies in Logan Canyon?
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�FK:
Well, I think that it’s a little bit difficult to answer. I mean I don’t know exactly how to
answer that, other than say that we’ve been studying coyotes and coyote ecology and
coyote populations and understanding them. And we’ve been doing that across the west.
And most of the things that apply to coyotes elsewhere, also apply to coyotes here. We
conduct the studies on coyotes . . . you know I’ve been involved in some very intensive
predation studies in Texas. I’ve been involved in coyote population studies in Idaho, in
Utah, the state of Washington, Wyoming. So I mean they are all scattered around. The
general population patterns are the same; it’s just that you sometimes tweak reproductive
rates or you tweak territory sizes or something like that differently when you go from one
type of environment to another. But the basic principles in terms of recruitment loss and
the behavior of the animals was just one of the things that you try to work with
extensively when you’re trying to manage deprivations. So coyotes are very similar in
terms of behavior, in terms of their population mechanisms throughout their range.
RS:
I was just going to ask about policies then; because if you have been doing studies on
coyotes I wonder, have there been any major policy changes regarding coyotes that are
important or that have maybe shaped your work?
FK:
Well, there have been some major policy changes in predator management practices;
particularly when you’re dealing with animals that cause deprivations. And to pin any
specific thing to specific research becomes a little bit difficult. For instance, in 1972 by
executive order all predacides were essentially banned in the use for killing coyotes in the
federal program. They did switch for some other techniques but that was without the use
of poisons. Some of the other subtle things that are going on, just understanding that
there’s not a great big mass of coyotes floating around just looking for something to bite,
but to understand their territorial and that they limit their own numbers, through
aggression or pushing the animals out into unfit environments where they die.
And understanding that reproductive rates change; things like that. The management
program is trying to shift from removing the animals to behavioral modifications that’s
finding those processes, trying to work with those processes that decrease the likelihood
that they are going to develop perdition problems. But the policies change slowly.
Sometimes they exceed the lifetime of the professionals that are doing the work. You
have to wait for the people to change [laughing] in order to get new practices instilled.
Although there are occasions when there are very specific directives that come down that
are very politically motivated; I mean, that bad intoxicant’s [bill] in 1972 was primarily
politically motivated by somebody that wanted to garner a few more votes for presidency.
RS:
So what’s your overall impression of how land use policies are determined in Logan
Canyon?
FK:
Well that’s something that you probably outa get more information from the Forest
Service on that, which is, they’re the primary ones. But I think that curtly there’s a lot
more public input into the establishing the policies and the guidelines by which they
manage. At least the public is taking into serve in sort of an advisory role in terms of
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�what their interests are. It isn’t that, obviously when you’re talking about areas large and
as varied as Logan Canyon is that there are a lot of people that have a lot of different
ideas about how it should be used and they all can’t have their way. It’s my impression
that the Forest Service is trying to let people have voice and help to guide some of that.
RS:
So are you a member of any associations that are involved in decision making and land
use policies in Cache Valley?
FK:
Not at the moment.
RS:
Or in any other places?
FK:
I’m on, the list goes back to earlier things, I am on the Red Wolf Recovery
Implementation team which sort of reviews of policies of trying to establish the wild
population of red wolves in North Carolina. That harkens back to a time when my
research group was responsible for quote, “finding the remnant populations of red
wolves.” And they were brought into captive breeding program; then eventually released
back into North Carolina. We were more sort of advising Fish and Wild Life Service
what things they need to be doing and what measures they should be taking to understand
what’s going on.
RS:
So have you worked in North Carolina?
FK:
No, other than going there for advisory. But it was my background in terms of canidae
biology and behavior of that expertise. There’s actually 8 members of that team; we get
together twice a year to review data, make suggestions and recommendations.
RS:
Have you ever tried to influence government actions and, besides making
recommendations, but like writing letters or attending meetings?
FK:
Well I attend professional meetings. But I haven’t as federal employees we’re sort of
restricted from getting into policy arenas. Now that I’m retired maybe I can get into them;
become a little more involved in that.
RS:
What world events have had the most impact on your professional life?
FK:
I think, compared to my professional life, it has probably got to be the environmental
moment... that essentially sprung up in the early 70’s after the release of Rachel Carson’s
book Silent Spring. Which made people really aware of many of the environmental
issues that are going on, were going on at the time. And of course, that focus has
switched over the years. I mean now we see it in terms of global warming and energy
policy and things like that. But just waking public awareness of the impact that humans
have on their environment has essentially is driven by professional career. Because
people have different ideas about the species that I’ve spent my career studying was
funding for it is derived because of the controversies and the interests that people have.
There are a lot of different people that are very much endeared to coyotes; they are very
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�charismatic and they’re extremely interesting, I think, if you get to know them. There’s
other people that detest them because of the economic problems they cause to their
livelihoods. And that can be a major conflict. And the public awareness of those, I mean
of being charismatic, they are trying to push it in one direction and the other people are
adamantly opposed to; they would like to see the last one gone.
RS:
Ok. So do you have any other particular stories that you would like to share with us about
your experiences.
FK:
Nothing other than it’s been a really, a really fun career. I mean it’s had its trials and
tribulations, but it’s had some enormously interesting and really insightful things that you
just go along and you are just totally puzzled by something. Then you know, every few
years you get one of those “ah-ha” moments. And things seem to fall into place and you
seem to understand one more small aspect of the whole situation. That’s what people that
get wrapped up in environmental research live for I think; the “ah-ha” moments.
RS:
Do you have any in particular that you remember specifically going: “Oh this is…”
FK:
Well, some of them are, a bunch of them are really minor things. Like one of the minor
ones that I had was early on when I was starting out my studies in Texas, I used to collect
coyote carcasses’ from government trappers. And I would look at the stomach contents to
see what they were eating. And I remember from this one location I kept finding what
obviously was cowhide: no meat, nothing, just cow hide. And it was just one of those
puzzling things you know. Why is it that? And, one day I was out on that ranch and one
of the people that was there whose duty was to go out and shoot a cow and butcher it and
bring it in. So I because at the time I just went along with people, just to see what was
happening. So he killed a cow and they butchered it out there in the field and took the
meat back to the cool shack to spread out to the families that belonged on that ranch. But
the hind and the internals and everything were just; they dug a hole and put ‘em in it. I
said “Ah ha!!”
RS:
Free food for the coyotes…
FK:
And you know that was just, it’s a very minor thing but those sort of things, you never
know when you are gonna run into those things that suddenly give you insight into
something. I mean the other time I found, I was looking at studying coyote droppings to
determine what they were eating. I literally had thousands of them. This one time of year
I kept finding little sharp pieces of grass and I couldn’t, it looked like they were eating
cow dung or something like that. And it didn’t make much sense to me. Then one day I
just saw these little insect cocoons that were hanging on a fence. The worms had climbed
up there and they had created a cocoon by cutting short pieces of vegetation and
wrapping it around themselves and secreting a [?]. And it suddenly dawned on me that
the same coyote droppings that had these short pieces of grass on them, also had insect
parts in them. So they would go along the fences and pick it, pick these things off them.
RS:
Like berries.
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�FK:
And eat them like berries.
[Laughing]
RS:
That’s fascinating.
FK:
It also meaning, with eco coyotes being a carnivore but certain times of the year in Texas
90% of the diet is fruit. You know it’s no big deal, but it’s just one of those things of how
really amazing how versatile they are as a species. Someday I’m going to write a book
about some of the neat little things about me.
RS:
That would be great! Well, now that you are retired and when the farm settles down a
little and you have a little more spare time maybe you can.
FK:
Well I built the last fence already so.
RS:
Well, I’m glad your wife likes it now too! That’s right; I wanted to ask you a quick
question about her; probably not related to the project. But you said she went to West
Virginia Wesleyan?
FK:
That’s where she started going to school.
RS:
Is she from West Virginia?
FK:
No, she is from western Pennsylvania.
RS:
Okay. I’m from Maryland and I went to West Virginia University so I know West
Virginia.
FK:
Oh, no she went to West Virginia Wesleyan for a couple years and then she had to decide
if she was going to go back to school or if she was going to go to Texas with me.
[Laughing]
And so she and we started raising a family. She did take time, she took some courses at
the Trinity University in San Antonio. And then she actually, in 1972 we moved to
Logan, she actually finished her degree at Utah State in Environmental Studies.
RS:
Did you have influence on her for studying that or that was her own interest.
FK:
No, that was her interest. And it was, it has been sort of interesting. She has always had
(It’s sort of interesting how peoples career sort of wobbles around frequently) but she has
always had an affinity for older people. I mean just grandmothers and just old people in
general. And after she got her degree here she was not especially an outdoor person at the
time. But she must have been 40 at the time when she signed up to be a true leader on the
YCC program; which is the Youth Conservation Core. And they were going out in the
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�Logan Canyon, I mean in the surrounding area. They were rip rapping streams and they
were building fences and they were building trails and all that sort of thing. And
sometimes they’d go out Monday morning and come back Friday evening; and camping
out in the meantime. It almost seems out of character at the time, but it was something
she did. But at the same time she had an interest in gerontology; so she pursued some
studies in that and eventually she became the activity director at Sunshine Terrace here in
Logan. She was in the activities department there for 15 years.
RS:
Wow; good thing she liked grandmas, huh.
FK:
Yeah! Well, I mean that was her plan she, she eventually, she retired 6 or 7 years ago.
But she still gets involved.
RS:
And you say you have three children…
FK:
Four.
RS:
Four children.
FK:
Two girls, two boys.
RS:
And are they, did they get… I know you said one is interested in horses and said why
didn’t you buy the farm earlier? But are they sort of into using the land or living on…
FK:
One of them is a teacher in Ogden. And one works at local cheese enterprise. One was a
mechanic for 20 years and currently is a long haul truck driver, and thoroughly enjoys it.
And then the youngest one, which is the one that likes horses, got a PhD from the
University of Alaska at Fairbanks. At the moment she’s, she has come back and taught
Oceanography here at Utah State for two years but she is returning to Fairbanks in a
month or so, where she’s going to be helping to coordinate, what they call the Census of
the Seas. She’s into marine biology. And that’s a world-wide program. And she will be
coordinating the near shore elements of that census.
RS:
Diverse group! Alright well, if you have anything else you would like to share, now
would be great. And if not?
FK:
Well, it’s just that Utah environment is really fun to be around and it’s got variety and it’s
pretty neat if you like the outdoors.
RS:
I think so too. Okay well thank you for your interview.
FK:
Yeah.
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�
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Frederick Frank Knowlton interview, 28 April 2008, and transcription
Description
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Fred Knowlton talks about his experiences growing up on the family farm in Springville, New York, his family's educational pursuits, and his experiences with coyotes and the environment.
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Knowlton, Frederick Frank, 1934-
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Smith, Rebecca
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Interviews
Knowlton, Frederick Frank, 1934---Childhood and youth
Family farms--New York
Wildlife Management
United States. Dept. of Agriculture--Officials and employees--Interviews
Coyote--Research--Texas
Coyote--Research--Curlew Valley (Idaho and Utah)
Logan Canyon (Utah)
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Springville (New York)
Erie County (New York)
New York
San Antonio (Texas)
Bexar County (Texas)
Comal County (Texas)
Texas
Curlew (Utah)
Box Elder County (Utah)
Cornish (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Logan Canyon (Utah)
Utah
United States
Logan (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
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eng
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Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives, Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection, FOLK COLL 42 Box 4 Fd. 1
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Inventory for the Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection can be found at: <a href="http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php">http://library.usu.edu/folklo/folkarchive/FolkColl42.php</a>
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Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of the USU Fife Folklore Archives Curator, phone (435) 797-3493
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Logan Canyon Land Use Management Oral History Collection
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28 April 2008
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Logan Canyon Reflections
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Cache Valley Breeding Association road sign in Cache County
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Scenic 89 tourism road sign photographed along Highway 89 in Cache County as part of a project by the State Department of Highways to document Utah highways signs.
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An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Utah State Department of Highways
Subject
The topic of the resource
US 89 (Cache County)--Photographs
Advertising--Utah--US 89
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
Photographs
Black and white photographs
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
12/16/1965
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Milepost 16 (Utah)
US 89 (Utah)
Cache County (Utah)
Utah
United States
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1965-1975
20th century
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Utah State Archives and Records Service, Outdoor Advertising Sign Inventories, Series 959, Box 1. Folder 14. Photo 1041.
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Utah State Archives and Records Service
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of the Utah State Archives, phone (801) 533-3535.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Image
Sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
image/jpeg
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
00959001014_1041_CacheValleyBreeding.jpg
Advertising and Marketing
Road Signs
Transportation