November 28

1C Sunny
Obviously it froze last night or more than likely around daylight.
Well our BC Lions won the big match up. The Vancouver media will be lauding that for a while.
Yesterday was interesting when we went to decorate the Christmas tree at the club house - about 20 women all with their own ideas and all trying to take charge. I turned my hearing aids down low!

The cache boasted the conventional grinder that all forestry tool caches had – a small set of grinding wheels on one end and a large three foot diameter stone set in the middle with a water tray at the bottom. The whole apparatus was mounted on a two by four frame about six feet long, this  one was run on electric power. By the end of that first week I had all the tools sharpened and back on their racks but still no sign of Sterling.

When Monday rolled around, I realized I was in a dilemma; I had no vehicle, the clean-up and organizing was pretty well finished and I couldn’t just sit around and do nothing.

There were some eight foot spruce trees planted along the driveway so I trimmed them up, took down and repainted the sign that identified the office as a forestry station, then re-erected it. Then finally on the Monday afternoon, Sterling radioed to say he would arrive the next day. Fort St. John was two hundred and sixty miles away, at an average of fifty miles per hour I figured it would take him five to six hours arriving in mid afternoon.

I put the morning in visiting the two grocery stores, the bulk fuel dealer, the RCMP and the local game warden; these would all be people I would be dealing with once the fires came. In the afternoon I puttered about not really doing anything but putting in time. I was a bit apprehensive as I was fully aware of Sterling’s reputation and in spite of myself was concerned over his reaction to my heading out  before his return. By five thirty he still hadn’t arrived so I went home.

The next morning I arrived at the office at my usual time of a quarter to eight, There was a yellow international ¾ ton pick-up in the driveway and my cache door was open!

I went to the cache and this slightly balding chunky fellow of about forty to forty –five stepped out and stared at me for a few seconds, I said “I sure hope you’re Sterling.”

A funny little grin twitched his lips and he said, “Yes and you must be John.” He stuck out his hand. Then  said, “Looks like you’ve been busy. Now there won’t be any one coming around so let’s go into town and we’ll have coffee.”

I said OK and I relocked the cache and climbed into the pick-up. It was a half mile into the hotel coffee shop and he filled in the few minutes by asking if I had got the family settled and what was my impression of Fort Nelson so far. Well he hadn’t roared or bitten me and I started to relax. I noticed that he had some difficulty with a few words and there were visible scars around his face and arms.

We spent a good hour in the coffee shop and he finally brought up his wish to have Fort Nelson to be a Ranger district and since I would be putting in the winter there as well as the following summer it would be my priority to change the perception of Fort Nelson being only a summer fire fighting station.