Early Days in the Forest Service Volume 4

MEMORIES OF GEORGE HAYNES AND HONEYSUCKLE RANGER STATION
By John F. Breakey

I shall now endeavor to reminisce, recounting some of my experiences with George Haynes, District Ranger, in early days on the Coeur d'Alene, beginning in 1932. We were at the old Honeysuckle Ranger station. Frank Bishop, of the Coeur d'Alene NF, was trying to complete the Crooked Ridge road, then being built on George's district. He had commenced the activity a couple of years previous to my arrival at Honeysuckle. As usual we were short of funds and working long hours. We often joined crews including Bishop's men, extras working for me, and Haynes' crew. By October, our personnel were reduced to a total of twenty men. Bishop had pulled his crew off Haynes' district; then occupied elsewhere. No relief until snow. My brush clearing crew was rushing to finish our assignment of removing the low land brush and debris, in preparation for burning the following winter, after summer's drying, then controlled burning next autumn.

I had spent the previous winter, designing and supervising construction of a brush rake assembly, mounted on a gasoline-powered swamp, wide-gauge tractor. The rake attached to a bulldozer frame, roared through the brushy stream bottoms, stacking its gatherings, windrowed neatly near the center of the clearing. Cleanup crews were required to slash and trim fringes of collections. It was necessary to saw down logs into sizes small enough to be man handled, and tossed on the windrows. Machine was a Caterpillar, an R5 with power of the previous 75.

One instance, vividly remembered. George converted four of his pack mules to harness. Hitched the pairs tandem. Used them to skid logs and poles as bridge repairs and reliners for cross drains. George's pickup skinner, proved unsatisfactory. In my crew was a Kentuckian; tall, raw-boned with red hair. Ishram overheard George complaining of his driver's inability to manage the skidding team. Ishram immediately offered to give the mules a chance of obeying his commands.

The agreement resulted in a happy ending for the ranger's skidding job. Red's first act was to remove the gear from mules. Fit them with sweat pads, collars that suited each mule, and halters; discarding the blinder equipped bridles. Ishram's method was leading his team, avoid aggravating already sore mouths.

It suited the converted pack mules. Being used to lead lines, the animals began responding to commands, skidding logs better than horses, as they managed the wet steep hill sides, surprising the ranger. Red lowered the kitchen's sugar cube supply considerably. Soon, the mules were following Ishram, regardless of lead lines, braying whenever he became lost from sight.

We worked together until the pass to the lake was snowed in. Collected all rigs behind the tractor fitted with makeshift planked A-frame. Came over Honeysuckle pass, making the trip between daylight and dusk in a blinding snowstorm.