Early Days in the Forest Service Volume 4

ANECDOTES AND FIRELINE PHILOSOPHIES
By Ralph L. Hand

Thinking back over the past and going over some of my old diaries and other notes, I find a few items overlooked or at least not included in the Volume 3 contribution. Instead of a narrative account in chronological order, I think it might be better (at least easier) to comment on some of those missing items which include anecdotes, fire line philosophies and apt sayings of some of my well remembered contemporaries in those early years; items that may be familiar to a lot of the old-timers, but which to my knowledge have never been seen in print.

One of the first that comes to mind is G. I. Porter's account of how he was traded by the Nez Perce Forest to the Regional (at that time District) Office for two pack mules. That of course was in the days of statutory salaries and it seems that when G. I. moved from Grangeville to Missoula there was an unexpended balance that had been budgeted for his salary. Instead of an immediate replacement, the Supervisor requested permission to use this surplus to purchase two mules, which he said were badly needed at the time. Permission must have been granted anyhow, the Nez Perce got two mules and the District Office got G. I. Porter, but it was some years later that I heard more about it from G. I. himself. At first, he said it seemed just a bit humiliating to have been ignominiously traded off for two mules (they might at least have thought him worth a short string) but after considering the value of a mule against the salary of a Forest Office in those days, he felt a lot better. There was no doubt, he said, that from a monetary standpoint the Nez Perce got the best of the bargain, but on the other hand he realized that the District Forester must have wanted him quite badly, to have accepted such a deal.

Another one that dates back to the early years was a favorite of Dean Miller of the Idaho School of Forestry. One of his students when asked to define a virgin forest, expressed it as, "one in which the hand of man has never set foot." And that brings to mind the historic reply to a question said to have appeared in one of the old Forest Ranger examinations - what to do in case of a crown fire? The answer having been "Run like hell and pray for rain." Almost everybody has heard that one, but I have heard the authorship of that classic solution to a common problem of the old time firefighter, disputed on several occasions. To the best of my knowledge, it was Lloyd Fenn, who spent a brief period in the Forest Service before switching to the law and politics; and I can say that it sure sounds like the Lloyd Fenn that I knew when, between sessions of the Idaho Legislature, he shared a combined law and printing office at Kooskia with his father, Major Frank A. Fenn of early Forest Service fame.

Among the tales that predate my Forest Service career, was one about a ranger on the old Selway who was short of competent overhead and had to leave a small crew on an inactive portion of a large fire in the charge of an earnest, but totally inexperienced college professor. Just before leaving the newly appointed foreman he said, "Now if you run into a problem don't hesitate to send me a note by messenger; all he has to do is follow the fire line up ahead and he'll find me." Next day there was a major blow up, the ranger was busy establishing new camps and it was a week later that he was reminded of the professor whom he had left 20 miles or so behind, when a weary and footsore firefighter staggered along the fire line and handed him a note. Written on a single sheet of notebook paper was this message: "The problem of today is the situation of tomorrow; we must attack with zeal and vigor."

Another incident, quite similar in geography and timing but entirely different in motivation, was told by Charlie MacGregor, another of the Selway old-timers. An experienced and capable foreman who was getting a bit too old to tackle heavy fire line duty was given a small mop-up crew at the rear of an uncontrolled fire. He was somewhat resentful on being put out to grass, so to speak, but accepted the situation and buckled down to work without comment. About three blow-ups and that many burned out drainages later, Charlie got a note by messenger, and it too, had been written on a single sheet of notebook paper. It read, "We're doing fine down here in the shade. Hope you're comfortable up there on top."

Some of the most original among the anecdotes and philosophic remarks were centered around the cook house or had to do with campfire cuisine. Jim Adcock, another of the old Selway gang was doing his best to cobble up a meal for a half-dozen hungry, unexpected visitors, from the inadequacies of a late-in-the-season, two-man camp. Jim had a deep bass voice, a southern accent and a slow, hesitant method of delivery. When he stuck his head out the door the expectantly waiting men started to rise, but instead of the usual "Come and get it!" they heard him say: "If you don't like soup ... supper's over."

Rosy Wagner was one of the few men I ever met who could hold up with the best, either at fire camp cooking or back country packing. He was a sour dough artist that could turn out a big wash boiler full of raised doughnuts over a camp fire as easily as he could cargo, pack and pull a string of mules cross-country, but he wasn't one to put up with foolishness. One morning after beating on a dishpan for ten minutes, without much response from the bedded down fire fighters he yelled, "Are you guys going to come and get it or do you want me to funnel you!"

I remember that one of the first things I was taught about preparing meals for woodsmen was to make the coffee strong; as one celebrated fire cook put it, the most important thing was not to lose your nerve when you put the coffee in. There were all sorts of descriptive remarks relating to weak coffee, ranging from the mildly ironic to downright exaggerated sarcasm. I heard one man compare it to his mother-in-laws cambric tea, while another swore that he could have seen a fish swimming in seven feet of it.

At least an occasional amusing comment relates to a lack of, or the use of improper ingredients. Buck Spalinger told of one time when he and his partner ran out of grease and had to fry their spuds in creek water. Asked how they came out, he said, disgustedly, "Tasted just like they were boiled." And Dave Robertson, with whom I cruised timber on the Coeur d'Alene in 1922, came the closest he ever did to offering the cook a compliment on one of his special concoctions, when he said, "Well, (long pause), most of the ingredients seem to be there." Even drinking water wasn't immune to such comments and it was another of my predecessors on the Selway that was often quoted as having said, "When you're really thirsty, nothing tastes quite so good as cold spring water out of an old, rusty tin can."

Sometimes an involuntary diet on short rations or no rations at all such as might happen when a fire camp was burned out, or had to be abandoned during a blow-up brought out an unexpected aphorism from some lumberjack philosopher. I'm sorry that I don't remember at least a few such incidents that occurred at Marble and Foehl Creeks in 1922 and on the Lochsa a few years later. The best that I can do is to repeat a story that Franklin Girard told me about an experience that he had on the Nez Perce Forest when he was first assigned to a ranger district there. In order to get acquainted with a totally unfamiliar area, he set out afoot one morning and got completely lost in one of those big, heavily timbered basins in which the small tributary streams seem to twist and turn in all directions; I know what they are like, having been tangled up in one or two of them myself, in later years. Well, Frank wandered about, following game trails until they petered out, subsisting mostly onberries for the better part of two days, until he finally found a trail that showed possibilities of leading him out of the wilderness. Spurred on by encouraging signs of recent human occupancy, he finally spied a man ahead of him, with a packsack on his back and, it wasn't long until Frank caught up with the lone traveler, but when he tried to engage him in conversation he wasn't very successful. On being asked if he was returning from a fire, the answer was, "Hell no! Some dam' fool ranger got lost a couple days ago and everybody in the country - me included - has been out looking for him." That sort of put a crimp in Frank's plan of action which was to get something to eat without letting on that he was the primary cause of his fellow traveler's disgruntled feelings; but his carefully worded hints had no apparent effect on the grumpy stranger. Finally he broke down and with complete candor said, "Well you might as well know, I'm that dam' fool ranger that got lost; now will you tell me, is there anything to eat in that packsack - or if not, will you lead me to someplace where there's grub I haven't eaten anything but huckleberries for two days." There were some leftovers from a smokechaser ration in the packsack and Frank said it tasted better than anything he'd had in a long time. He even compared it with meals he had been served during his boyhood days back home in Tennessee, and once having started along that line, the conversation rambled into all sort of nostalgic memories.

I recalled the time that Bert Kauffman and I subsisted for about three days on rice and tea during a snowshoe trip in the upper Lochsa, and Frank retaliated with a vivid description of a night spent at a Nez Perce cabin that he called the "Arbuckle Inn." He just happened to stumble on it during a violent storm which he had expected to "tough out" in the open, and the name was inspired when he noted that old Arbuckle Coffee cans had been flattened out and used to seal up the gaps where the chinking had fallen out. Still, he said, they hadn't prevented a wood rat from sharing his quarters that night.

I wonder how many of the old Kooskiaites and Selway savages are still alive that remember the legend of how Deadman Creek - a tributary of the Lochsa River - got its name. There was supposed to have been a cabin not far from the mouth of the creek, but it was gone before I came to the Selway in early 1923, no doubt burned during the fires of 1917 or 1919, both of which were bad fire years in that general area. Anyhow, according to the story as it was told to me, a couple of trappers snow shoed down the canyon one stormy day, intending to spend the night at this particular cabin, only to discover that it was already occupied. The occupant was another trapper, known to the two as a loner who rarely associated with others of his kind. He was stretched out on the bed dead as a doornail - and frozen stiff as a poker.

They realized of course, that according to a recognized law of the wilderness, the other fellow had "squatters rights," yet they also realized that in his present condition he had far less need for shelter than they; so with a logic born of necessity and belief in the survival of the fittest, they each took an end of the canvas tarp on which he was lying, carried him outside and deposited him on a snow bank in the lee of the cabin. Then they spread their bedrolls on the dried bear grass and proceeded to get a comfortable night sleep. No one seemed to know whether or not they returned the ousted occupant to the shelter of the cabin before continuing their journey, but at any rate the building was afterward known as the "Deadman Cabin" and the creek became Deadman Creek as could be noted by reference to the local USFS maps.

It isn't always an involuntary night in the open or the primitive facilities of a backwoods cabin that brings out a bit of latent philosophy from an unexpected source. I think it was in 1930 that I took part in one of those consolidated guard training programs that were becoming popular about that time. This one took place at the Avery Ranger Station and the Forest Service hay barn had been selected as a bunk house - it being the only available space big enough to house the combined seasonal forces of three large ranger districts. I believe Ernie Lemon was the barn boss at that time and to him had fallen the job of taking care of each of the groups as they came in from various directions and at intervals throughout the day; issuing beds, assigning quarters, explaining the no smoking rules, etc. The last groups arrived on the late Milwaukee train and it was well past midnight when Ernie finally rolled into his blankets. When the early morning call came a few hours later, Ernie raised up on his elbows and with a bewildered expression on his face said, "Well it sure doesn't take long to stay all night in this place."

I've heard it said that when you arrive at the point where the weather becomes the main topic of conversation, it's time to look around for the exits, so cheer up, this will soon be over. Pete Snyder held down Monumental Buttes Lookout - a primary point and important weather station - for many years. During one of the earlier years we had a terrific windstorm accompanied by huge quantities of rain and hail. Next morning in the course of reporting the various weather measurements Pete gave the amount of precipitation registered in his rain gauge and added: "That's just what came down; there was at least that much more than went sideways and never hit the ground."

Long before the days of walkie-talkies, I spent a summer at Roundtop Ranger Station on the St. Joe Forest. Franklin (Judge) Girard was the district ranger and I had been assigned as his assistant, my principle job being to operate the switchboard that served the Roundtop, Pole Mountain and part of the Avery District. In addition, I was cook, housekeeper and general roustabout or handyman, but when it became apparent that we were in for a real tough fire season my job evolved into that of a combined fire dispatcher and short order cook.

During the first real let up, occasioned by an early September snowstorm, I took advantage of the break to spend a few quiet evenings writing down in rhyme some of my feelings that had been generated during those hectic days while I was hopping back and forth between the telephone switchboard and the cook stove. Soon afterward I was transferred to a cruising and mapping job on the Coeur d'Alene and the poem was forgotten. Years later, I ran across it among some old long forgotten papers, and polished it up a bit but failed to do anything else about it. I seem to recall that poetry was considered taboo (and perhaps still is) as far as in-service publications were concerned. Now, after more than 50 years since it was composed, I am brushing off the dust, giving it a second critical review but without changing the original context. I present it for what it may be worth. All I can add is that it is the best illustration I can give in the fewest words and least space of what a field dispatcher's job in the USFS was like some fifty-odd years ago.

I will concede that in a very few instances I have juggled locations and timing to a limited extent, but I guarantee that every incident alluded to is an item of fact and that each one did occur on the Roundtop District in the summer of 1922. There are a few references that may require a little clarification. The switchboard howler - we had three of these amplifiers - one each for the Avery, Pole Mountain and Fishhook lines, reminds me of the many times that they were the only means of getting through when the ringing circuit became ineffective. Tom Crossley from the Nez Perce Forest who spent much of that summer in one or another of the Marble Creek fire camps, seldom twisted a crank or pushed a buzzer button; he just yelled, "Hello Roundtop!" and I could hear him even if I happened to be out on the loading platform unloading supplies. As for the Wobblies (I.W.W.) we didn't have any real serious trouble, but agitators did appear in a few of our fire camps attempting to stir things up.