Becoming a wildland firefighter

After taking on Jen and Steve, a full-time work position came up, and I was offered an interview to be held in a couple of weeks. I was newly married, and the thought of being a union member appealed to me. I would be on a salary, and that means a more stable paycheck. I told them that I was very interested.

Just before my interview was coming up, Jen and Steve came down with chickenpox, their dad asked us if we had already dealt with this when we were kids, and we both said yes. I seemed to remember having them, but apparently, I was wrong, and I came down with it a few days before my interview.

On the day of my interview, I had pox scabs all over my body and a temperature of 103. I did not want to miss my interview, though, so off I went, kinda delirious, sweat pouring off my forehead, and looking like hell. After one look at me, they took me into a boardroom with a long table, told me to sit at one end, and they sat at the other end. They fired a couple of questions off to me and then said if I was willing to come in as sick as I was for the interview, the job was mine. Then, they sent me home to heal before beginning my new job.

Over the next few years, I worked for the various forestry divisions, first with the silver culture division, where I learned how to lay out plots, do pre-harvest assessments, do waste surveys and numerous other skills within this division. I took to this like a duck on water and loved the job.

Next, I went to work for recreation, which was awesome, we would look after trails, campgrounds and repair picnic tables and outhouses. One of the great projects I got to be involved with was building the Sayward Valley Canoe Route. It was a winter project, and the trails were mostly built using canoes to access them. It was a canoe route after all. There is not much left of the original trail that we built, but it does show up here and there.

We had 2 teams of 4, and we spent 2 months building the original trail. Cutting these trails out of the forest was pretty tough work; the trails had to be big enough to allow people to move their canoes and gear through from one lake to the next safely. We did a pretty good job, but since then, it has been upgraded. I have walked sections of it and am quite impressed. On a trail that runs from Twin Lakes to Mohun Lake, we found a white pine that is the biggest I have ever seen. I mean, it was massive. The white pines that grow on the island have been dealing with a tree disease called rust, which has been affecting most of the trees on the island. This particular tree was rust-free and pretty impressive.

After working for recreation,  I got the chance to work with a science officer who had a class 5 position. His name was John, and the job entailed the study of different forms of logging as well as the study of the impacts of this logging. We processed plots from different stages of forest growth, from ancient forests to fully logged settings, and recently processed. We would create a soil profile of the various layers, looking also at the mineral horizons. We looked at the microbial communities of fungi and bacteria. We listed all plant and insect species as well. I was in my glory.

We were looking for a direct link between mycelium and tree/plant growth. John felt that this mycelium works as a super highway to transport nutrients from one tree to another. I had always believed in this as well. There were many organizations and individual scientists who were looking into it as well.

It has now been proven that mother trees help their offspring to grow. We also looked at old trees and how they are carbon sinks, holding on to vast amounts of carbon. One thing that surprised me was how stands of young trees can offset more carbon than stands of old-growth trees per square area of ground. I spent a year with John, and my interest in plant species, uses, and soil compositions and my love of fungi was born. This has always been of interest to me. I recently watched a TED talk by Susan Semard that explains how this works; it’s called How Trees Talk to Each Other. This was an amazing project to work on, and I thank John for the year of discoveries.

After working for the science division, I moved on to protection. This was a great division to work for. Because of my firefighting training and the fact that I had already worked as a faller, I was allowed to grandfather in and fall for the Forest Service. I would go into a logged area that was scheduled to be burnt and fell all snags up to 100 meters from the edge of the burn. Once we had this done, we would set a parameter hose line to catch any fire that escaped. Then we would bring in the helicopters and use the pinball system to do the burn. We would first get a big burn going near the center, then set the outer edge on fire. The main fire pulled this in towards the center, building an outer guard of burnt ground. Occasionally, we would use a truck-mounted flame thrower to get the burns done; this was cool.

I was a heavy drinker in those days and still would fight at the drop of a hat. I was going up for another assault charge, in a long line of assaults. I took time off from work to deal with my issues. I quit drinking and got help from a government program. I had one-on-one counselling and joined AA. Quitting drinking was pretty hard.

When my court date came up, i was convicted of assault, and as the judge slammed the graval, he said, ” I sentnce you to 2 years, less a day”. As he said those words, I was thinking, shit, two years were going to be hard.  judge anthony Sarrich waited a minute before continuing, by saying. ” You have quit drinking and cleaned your act up, so I am going to suspend your sentence. I will put theses conditions on you, No drinking for two years and you must continue your treatment with the government program. You must also keep going to AA for the two years.

Bills had piled up while I was going through all this, and I needed to work again. The Forest Service said they had something coming up in the fall. Then another outfit on Gilford Island offered me a job cooking in camp. The camp was about 20 km inland from Scot Cove. I had never been a camp cook before, but having been on the other side for years, I knew what to do. I was a pretty good cook; I even cooked all our meals at home. It was for one 15-day shift. Gina came in with me. The camp had a modern cookhouse and wash/shower rooms, but our cabins were wall tents. They had plywood floors and walls with the tents set up over them. They had proper beds, and each had a wood stove. The camp was being sold, and we would be doing an inventory as well.

We had a full-size diesel generator and full power in all the cabins. I would turn off this power at 9 pm and fire it up around 4:30 to get things ready in the cook shack. My wife, Gina, was a beautiful young lady of 20 years, and the boys all wanted to talk with her. I have never seen such a group of loggers act so politely in all my days. My wife gave them all haircuts, and they came to supper each night in their go-to town clothes. Hair slicked back, and fingernails and necks scrubbed of dirt.

Halfway through our shift, one of my deep freezers gave up the ghost. We were a long way from town, and this freezer was full of food that would go bad before I could get a new one in. We took a drive down to Scott Cove and put the word out. I was surprised when a man said he had one at his float house, but it was across the cove, and we would need a boat to pick it up. The only boat that I could locate was a 16-foot Boston Whaler owned by a local First Nations lad who guided the tourists that visited the bay during the summer months. The freezer was a full-size unit.

So off me and the young feller head across the bay to bring it back. We tied the boat tightly to the dock with some rubber bumpers between. We then very carefully and slowly slid it across the boat sideways. He worked from the back of the boat, and I from the front. When we got it loaded, it was hanging over each side by a foot or more, and we had about an inch of freeboard. It was a slow trip across, but the water was like glass, and we made it. The were were waiting to unload it as I and the young feller held the boat steady to the dock. Then it was just a matter of getting it into the truck, back to camp and installed in the cook shack. Sometimes things just work out.

One morning, Gina and I were sitting at a table in the cook shack, relaxing. We had just finished cleaning up the morning mess from the boys, and Gina had helped me make six pies for the crew that were on the counter, cooling. We were sitting right beside a window, having a coffee. There was a wild thunderstorm going on, and we were watching it. Then all of a sudden, we were blinded by a bright flash that filled the room. Then almost instantly, the trailer shook from the thunderous boom that followed. Lightning had hit the ground right side of the window. I found it very exciting, but Gina was terrified. Did you know that if lightning hits sand, it will form beautiful glass sculptures? At the time, I did not know this. I wish I did, as the whole area was sand.

When the shift was over and it was time to leave Gilford Island, all the boys begged Gina and me to stay on, but one shift of cooking was enough for me, and besides, I think all the boys were falling in love with my wife. We headed back to town with a check in hand.

After the cooking job, I was offered a job with a forestry contractor who did both pre-harvest assessments and waste surveys. We did shifts in camps from as far south as Jervis Inlet and as far north as Owekano Lake, at the head of Rivers Inlet. Owekano Lake was an awesome place to work. One of the prettiest spots on the coast of BC.

To get to our job site, you had to first take a boat to the back end of the lake, where we would hop into our work truck. We were doing pre-harvest assessments in the next 5-year plan. One day, not long after we had started working here, we had parked at the end of the road and were hiking in to do a pre-harvest assessment. As we were moving through the forest, we came upon signs of a grizzly bear fight between two large boars. One could see that this fight had been at least a year ago. The condition of the ground showed it must have been an incredible battle between two equally sized bears. By looking over the area, you could tell that one of them had killed the other. He must have been seriously injured, as you could see where he had lain down and also died from his wounds. It must have been an epic battle. Bones were scattered about from scavengers feeding on the remains. Looking about, I saw that both skulls were still there, with the teeth intact. I pulled the four upper incisors to take home. Three of them were made into necklaces that my two sons and I now wear; the fourth was given to a friend who was of the bear clan. He was a good friend and, over the years, had presented me with many wonderful gifts of a spiritual nature. Now it was my time to have the ability to return something of wonder to him. After telling him the story of the fight between these two titans of the deep forest, he was overwhelmed. It was the hug that was given between two brothers.

Some of the many bears we saw were massive, but they fit the territory. This land was primal and pristine. We were working up along the Machmell River. The forests were almost prehistoric. Each tree was a mighty giant. Walking below these mammoth trees made one aware of just how small we are. One day during lunch, we stopped at the end of a road that almost reached a canyon. This canyon was on the Machmell River. If you have ever seen a King Kong movie, this looked like something you would see in the production. It was so deep that it looked almost bottomless. As we sat at the brink of this chasm, you could see it going around a corner from our position. At the corner of this yawning crack in the land, you could see a waterfall flowing over the lip; it was a big waterfall. It never reached the river below; it would turn into mist and float down the river, settling on the rock walls. This abyss was only around 100 metres across, and yet it was unfathomably deep.

Just up the road from here was the Pashleth Creek bridge crossing; this was the highest logging road bridge in the world. I understand that it was very difficult to construct. I got out and walked across. The first time I saw it, it was pretty awesome. I took a rock out onto the bridge and dropped it. There was a good amount of time before I saw it hit a pool below.

In 2005, the Machmell River logging operation was shut down and dismantled. Environmental laws had changed regarding where logging could take place. Everything had to be removed, I mean everything, and the camp area was to be cleaned up. The bridge, on the other hand, is still there, I hear. Pretty tough to reach, though, I suspect more animals cross this span than humans these days. It would be cool to see it again, maybe one day.

By the time fall came, the contracts started to have some space between them, and I told my boss that if he wanted to keep me on, there would need to be more work. I had not worked for more than a week when the forest service called, offering me my falling job back. I told my other boss that he had to replace me; he was not happy, but that is just how it is.

BC Forstry gave me a position as a danger tree faller, and they gave me a partner. We were working on rehab blocks and future slash burns. There were always some big snags that needed to come down. These snags were scary, mostly fir and rotten, huge chunks would break off and come crashing down. You had to be quick to avoid being killed and, at the same time, save your saw.

I was still dealing with not drinking, and it was a daily battle; it had been more than a year since I quit. We were working on a block in the summer, and it was hot. We would start work at 6 am and quit at noon, then stay another two hours on fire watch.

I had an awesome water jug that I would make Kool-Aid in and put in the freezer overnight to freeze. This was so good when the day heated up. For some reason, I had left my jug at home. It was the hottest day yet. We were going to be shut down after this day, so we were giving it.  All I could think of was that jug of Kool-Aid.  We finished the project and both headed to the truck. As my partner, Dan, arrived, he leaned over the truck box, exclaiming how much he needed a beer. I realized that even in such heat, I still only thought of that jug of Kool-Aid. It was a great feeling.

Gina became pregnant again. We both were very happy and perhaps a bit worried about it. But through her first two trimesters, all was going well. We spent a lot of time outdoors, hiking easy trails and getting fresh air. I made sure our diet was healthy as well. One day, we headed up to a short trail that ran alongside a section of John Hart Lake. As we walked along, Gina all of a sudden said she was feeling faint and needed me to hold on to her.

Her skin went pale on her face, and she began to get a cold sweat. I was holding onto her. Then she lost consciousness, and I could not hold her up, so I gently laid her down in the moss at our feet. It was about half a mile to the car. I did not know what to do. I began to panic. I realized that I had to get a hold of myself, I knelt to hold her head on my arm and slowly rubbed her face while talking to her. She finally opened her eyes and smiled up at me. She was shaking and told me that she had seen herself being laid down by ladies all dressed in white; “they could have been angels”, she said. After she began to feel better, we made our way to the car. That was the first time anyone ever called me an angel.

During this time, my wife’s father came back into her life. He had been sober for many years and now spent his time commercial fishing and volunteering at the Victoria Friendship Center. I found that, contrary to all the stories I had heard about this man, he was a true gentleman. We became friends. He was up from Victoria visiting when Gina went into labour. I took her to the hospital, where her mom would join us. Dad stayed at our house. Gina’s two brothers came to keep him company. They would wait to hear about the birth; we did not want her mom and dad together at any point.

The labour was long and, from what I was seeing, quite painful. Damn, I had no idea what to expect. Every time a contraction came, she would squeeze my hand so hard I felt she was breaking bones. At one point, she said to me in a very dark and deeply demonic-like voice, “You will never touch me again”. At this point, I would not have been surprised to see her head rotate around. At 2:30 am, my child was finally on his way into the world. They were telling her to push, and the baby came halfway out. I still could not tell if it was a boy or a girl. Another push, and it was a boy; he came forth completely covered in shit and sporting a boner. My son Robert joins the world. He was beautiful. They quickly took him away to clean him up. I looked at my wife, and she was sleeping. When they brought my boy back, I was reaching out for him. My mother-in-law was quicker and jumped up to take him in her arms before I was able to. I waited more than half an hour to hold my son. I was not too happy about this, but she was an elder. So I had to bite my tongue, hold back my words and wait my turn.

I got home at around 4:30 am and to my surprise, Dad was still up waiting to hear about the birth, and both my brothers-in-law were still there. We all sat at my kitchen table while I regaled them with the tales of my son Robert’s birth. The boys rolled a bunch of joints that we smoked while we chatted and laughed. The joints kept going past Dad’s face, and he got pretty high. I took a look at him, and he was smiling like high heaven. His mouth was grinning, and his eyes were all a sparkle. The boys eventually went home, and Dad was already sleeping on the couch. All in all, it was a great day. I went to bed dreaming about my son. At 8:30 in the morning, the phone rang. It was my wife calling to say she was ready to come home. Damn, that was fast, but she is a tough young lady. So it was off to bring my family home. Robert was born on March 29, 1988. This was the birthday of my best friend, how cool is that?

In May of 1988, just after the birth of Robert, my wife and I were doing some spring cleaning in the yard. Picking up paper and raking up winter debris. My wife reached down to pick up a small bundle of pink paper that was lying at the base of one of our big fir trees. When she touched it, it rolled over and gave her a tiny but startling squeak. My wife screamed and fell back onto the ground. She called to come see. My curiosity was piqued, and I rushed over to see this tiny little bird who did not even have feathers yet.

You see, the pink paper turned out to be a baby crow that must have been born this morning and pushed out of the nest by an older sibling. It looked so weak and helpless just lying there. My first thought was to get this bird back in its nest. I looked up our giant fir tree and realized I was never going to get him back there.

My next thought was, let’s raise him. So the bird whose name became Merlin was moved into the house, and a great adventure was started. I had no idea what crows ate in the wild, so I got on the phone and got hold of every organization and bird society that I could think of and asked them what I needed to do to feed and care for this little bird. Most told me it was too young and I could never keep him alive.

I then phoned the Ministry of Environment office in Campbell River and got a man on the line who understood crows, and he helped with many things. He had a great knowledge of crows and told me what the wild crow’s diet consisted of and how a mother crow would feed it to her young. This involved the chewing up of insects and bugs; thank god for little food processors. I don’t remember the name of the fish and game guy, but he was awesome.

So, Merlin the crow, got a nice warm nest area right beside the wood heater where he would be warm at night, and he got constant care all day long. We kept Merlin comfortable at night, and through much trial and error, we got him to eat, and over the next few months, he grew into a full-grown crow. He lived on a perch in our living room and was very inquisitive about everything. If a person he had not seen before walked in, Merlin would tilt his head from side to side, checking them out, and then, with a loud caw, he would launch himself towards the visitor and, with flashing wings, would land upon their head for a better look. This came as a great surprise to many of our visitors. This suited my humour.

Merlin was very curious about Robert and would sit close if Rob was on the couch; he seemed to almost smile as he remained close. To this day, Rod has a connection to crows, some come right up to him and lets him pet them.

By the fall, Merlin went everywhere with me, both in the house and out in the yard. He loved being outside and would spend hours hanging out in the yard. As fall came and winter was getting close, Merlin asked me to take him outside, where we were greeted by many Crows in our fir trees, all cawing and making other crow sounds. Merlin was cawing back and getting very excited, then all at once, the other crows flew into the air and started to fly away, and Merlin flew up to join them.

As he was leaving, Merlin flew around our yard a couple of times and then flew off with the other crows cawing away, almost like he was saying goodbye. He visited several times over the next few years, then we moved, and I lost contact with him. I hope all is well with Merlin; he was a true friend of mine.

In the fall of 1989, my wife became pregnant again. This was something we had been trying for. The hope was for a girl but it did not matter that much. I thought it would be cool for Mom to have a little shadow to teach her stuff to. They say that to have a boy and a girl makes it what they call a million-dollar family.

Gina had one of those perfect pregnancies, not a single problem during the whole time. When she began to feel contractions, she asked to go to the hospital. Gina asked me to contact her mother so she could be there. I said OK, but in my head, I was thinking Yup, as soon as the birth happens. I still remember not being able to hold my son after he was born. Is this petty of me, maybe, but I felt strongly about this.

The labour was short, and after watching our first baby being born, this one was a breeze; my wife even joked during it. When the baby came, it was one push, and and my baby girl arrives. I was the father of a little girl, and I could not have been happier. I held onto her for an hour before I called my wife’s mom. Telling her the birth happened so fast that I had no time to call her. It was a little lie, but I felt good telling it. It was May 4^th, 1990.

Before the birth, we had many aunties who felt that if we had a girl, she should be named after one of them; they all made sure we understood how upset they would be otherwise. My wife and I realized that this was quite a situation. I figured the only way to get past this was to name her Georgina Ann Logan after her mom. Not one auntie showed any displeasure about this, and to the contrary, I think they were all impressed with how we got out of it.

Before her birth, I speculated how a little girl would be great for mom. A little one she can share all her craft skills and jewellery-making with. This is not how it played, not at all. My little girl became a daddy’s girl. It did not matter what needed to be done; Daddy had to do it. You could never know how many Barbies I dressed. If little Gina got a boo-boo, only Daddy could make it better. I took to this role whole heartily as she was my little girl and I loved her.

Now, when I am working on one of our trucks, she will come out and get right under there with me; she is pretty handy, too. You see, she has small hands and can get them into spots where my hands don’t fit. Don’t get me wrong, my little girl is a lady, she looks after herself with care and is very pretty, but she can also do a bit of mechanics work with her dad and is not afraid to get dirty.

At the end of 1988, a position came up on the initial attack fire team, and I was invited to apply. I got the job and never looked back. I loved fighting fires. We were 2 teams, 1 foreman for each and 3 crew members for a total of 8. The guys were pretty well-trained, really tough and awesome to watch in action. During fire season, all we did was fight fire, work on fire gear and practice working with our gear. I was a firefighter, but mostly I would just fight fire and build helipads. Sometimes a big snag would be hit by lightning, and I would need to drop it to put it out and the surrounding fire out. Then I was in my glory.

I did love my job, and a chance to drop a burning tree was pretty awesome. If you have ever got a stick burning and then waved it in the air at night, you will know what I mean. This was like that, but on a scale so much bigger, as the tree fell, the flames would roar, and then it would almost explode when it hit the ground. We would then make short work of the fire and be on our way home.

We did not start work until 10:30 am. Each morning after arriving at the base, my crew and I would do a 5-mile run, then we would do the  500 sit-ups and push-ups that were a requirement, but we would usually all do 1000 of each, and then we would head off to work. When the weather was wet, we would do slash and pile burns. This was good practice for firefighting. If the weather were hot and dry, we would be working around the base. Sometimes in really hot weather, they would keep us on standby at the base for another 4 hours at the end of the shift.

After 2 seasons, I was promoted to a team foreman, with better pay involved and more opportunities for upgrading my skills, I took every course I could get. Over the years, I was trained in fire weather, hiring of crews and equipment, fire cause investigation, air control, dangerous goods fire suppression, and numerous other certificates. I was the guy who, every year, certified personnel in hover exits for both the forest service and logging personnel from various companies.

When we would be involved in an interface fire, the local fire department would come to me and ask where I needed them to deploy. Campbell River Fire Chief Larry Lunigan and I would be involved in fires occasionally, and we worked well together. He called me up one time and told me to apply for a full-time position in his firehouse. I did, as they pay well and have awesome pensions. He called me up to give me the bad news that my age was too high; they only hired guys under 25. Damn eh. I was a man in his late 30s but looked much younger.

During the off-season, most of my guys would be back at university, and the couple of us left would do various jobs, mostly involving slash burns and trail building. Each year, they gave me a recreation project; one winter, it was exploring caves in our district to look for potential tourism opportunities. I love caving and dropped into my first hole when I was just 7 years old. It had become a lifelong passion. My objective in these missions was to look for potential recreation opportunities at these cave sites. Getting paid for several months to explore caves was a great way to spend the winter. Another year, I was given a chance to go fishing in as many lakes in our district as possible. I was to register how good the fishing was and if there was campsite potential, or perhaps trails that could be built in the area. These projects were awesome. There were many projects. I had my choice of who to hire for these jobs. I always hired my buddy Norm, who worked well with me.

In the spring, I would be put to work getting our firefighting gear ready for the upcoming season. I loved firefighting, but it could be dangerous. As I was getting our first aid gear ready, I got to thinking about the various injuries that we had all suffered. Most were minor ones like stitches, burns, twisted ankles or bruising from falls.

Some injuries ended careers in firefighting. During one tough and steep fire, we had a rock slide come rolling down the mountain toward us, and most of my guys got behind big trees. One of my guys had to jump behind a smaller tree than he would have liked. One rock caught him in the hip, shattering it, and his firefighting days were over. I had suffered a few injuries, a few of which led to some time off.

We had to hire a new guy after losing our team member to the rock slide. I sat in on the interviews and was quite impressed by one who had his first aid “A” ticket and had been a volunteer firefighter. With my urging, he was hired. He turned out to be the most useless tit to ever fight fires. One afternoon, I had him fuel up all our saws. The next fire we were sent to was a large burning snag that was on fire after lightning struck it. It would need to come down to put this fire out. After dropping from the heli, I grabbed my saw to cut it down. No matter how hard I tried, I could not start that saw. I looked in the fuel tank and to my horror, I saw it was full of oil, so I looked in the oil, and there was gas. I dumped them out and put a bit of gas in, shook it around and poured it out. I did this several times. Then I filled the fuel tank, and after much pulling and moving the choke in and out, I got it to start, and as long as I worked the choke, I could keep it going. At one point, I needed to use a wedge but needed someone else to pound it in, so I could work the choke.

This dickhead was all I had, so as I was working the choke and cutting the snag, he pulled back the axe for a swing and lost his balance, swung around and stuck it in the side of my frigging knee. I had to pull it free. He started to run to and fro, yelling to shut things down so they could get me off the mountain, and then he came at me with his first aid kit. I told him to get the hell away from me and just throw me your first aid kit. I wrapped my knee to control the bleeding, and my other crew members were arriving to see what was going on. I got the snag down, and with the help of my guys, we got a helipad built so we could get off this hill. It was my wife’s birthday, and I had plans to take her out to dinner, and nothing was going to stop me.  We got home, and I got my wife out to dinner. In hindsight, I should have gone to the hospital instead. The next morning, my knee was twice its size, and off to the docs I went. He had to give me a bunch of needles right into the wound and peel all the scabbing off to stitch it up. 7 stitches and a week off work.

After we laid off our guys in the fall, I talked to my boss about getting rid of this employee, and he informed me that it was tough to just fire a guy, the union would fight it, and we would need a pretty good reason. So I put that on the back burner and just did my winter jobs. Come spring, it was cold, and I was still wearing long johns at the start of June. The boss called me in and asked me if I still wanted to get rid of the guy who stuck an axe in my knee, hell, ya, I said. He told me that if it stayed cold for a bit longer, we could stall calling back the crew until after the time when we were required to hire all the guys from last year. We made it past that time and had no reason to call him back. We hired a new guy to replace him, and all was good.

Later that year, during late summer, we were up on a fire on the slopes of Victoria Peak on northern Vancouver Island. There are 2 mountains here, one is Victoria Peak and the other is Warden Peak. I had climbed both of these mountains in the past and had been up Victoria Peak 3 separate times. The views from up there were pretty nice and well worth the climb to see them. In my time, we would travel part of the way under a glacier that had a small river flowing beneath it. The walls were scalloped and glowing blue from the sunlight shining through; it was a phenomenal sight to see. I hear this has now melted away.

While we were fighting the fire, I had longlined in some gear that had been brought in by truck to a marshalling area below. After the pilot dropped it in a clearing, I began moving it closer to where it was needed. I had a trapper Nelson pack loaded with hose on my back and a Gorman-rup pump in my hands, and was crossing a large natural fallen tree. My pack shifted, and the next thing I knew, I was tumbling down the slope. I could not get myself to stop; the slope was steep and consisted of a hard layer of duff covered in small hemlock cones, and only when I crashed into a tree did I stop. As I took my bearings, I saw that the tree was on the edge of a 50-meter-high cliff. I had been pretty lucky to hit this tree, or I would have not stopped till I hit the bottom below the cliff. Upon the realization of how lucky I was, I turned to jelly and had a hard time controlling how shaky I was.

I was lucky not to have gone over the edge, but not so lucky in damage as the trapper Nelson pack crossboard had seriously herniated a couple of discs in my back and as I was getting my bearings, the pain began to set in. My crew had to get me down below the cliff to a flat area where a chopper could land and haul me off to town. I feared my firefighting days were over.

My back was at least not broken, but I had several herniated discs. I spent more than a week in the hospital, but suffered severe pain for over a year. I kept wanting to see a bone bender, but the workers’ compensation board refused me, saying that I would give up all rights to my claim by going to one.

After several verbally high-strung arguments, my adjudicator from compo and I were not seeing eye to eye, and he closed my claim early in, so now here I was hurting like hell, not able to see a bone bender and needing to appeal my claim to feed my family. I was a married man with a 2-year-old and a newborn baby, not able to work and no pay coming in. I appealed the decision I won. My adjudicator was called out for treating me in the manner he did. My claim paid out just over 50,000 dollars in back pay. Bills were paid up.

Sometime after this, my wife and I were shopping for groceries, and I had one of those big sneaky sneezes that sometimes catch you unaware. It dropped me to the floor from the pain, and I had to go to the car and wait for my wife. But you know, every day after that, my back felt a bit better. If I had been allowed to visit the bone bender back when I first got hurt, I might not have had to go through all this bullshit. My back was never the same, though, and I knew firefighting was out.

This was something I had not anticipated. I had planned to continue my firefighting training with hopes of working in the fire control center at some time in the future. Firefighting was my life, I loved it, and I did not know how to respond. I was in a slump and was lost. The way Compo had treated me left me in a depression. So, what to do, I had always liked welding and thought it might be a good career change. When I was in school, welding was a class that appealed to me, and I was pretty good at it, so I decided to go for it.