December 2

At 8 am it was zero, Fog bank and sunny.
Since I didn't get anything done on Sterling yesterday, I have been catching up this morning.

We shook hands and then he was on his way.

Part 2:

The preceding paragraphs were my introduction to Sterling. As the weeks went by my respect for him as a boss continued to grow. I never found the man that others seem to fear. He never questioned any of my requests for the things I needed to do the job. Probably one of his more extreme decisions was when I told him I wished that I had something that I could get around in the muskeg bushland that much of the district was made up of. A week after I made the comment, he radioed to advise me that the muskeg tractor from One – O – One was on its way to Fort Nelson. (One – O – One was another sub district about fifty miles out of Fort St. John).

When I made my first trip back to Fort St. John, I was told that I was to bring my family with me and to plan on being their for a couple of days. I did that, stayed in the same motel we had stayed in on the way north and enjoyed a couple of tremendous meals cooked by Sterling’s wife. It was during the first meal that I learned that among other things he suffered from bulimia.

While there he took me out to the community of Charley Lake where I was introduced to Eric, the man who would be my look-out man on Nel-X lookout. He had filled that position for the last few years. I suddenly awakened to the fact that in a sense Fort Nelson was not that much different from some of the smaller Ranger Districts in the province.

I had been told by one individual that had served under Sterling a couple years earlier, that the only people he respected were those that would argue with him vigorously even when they were wrong. Well he and I never had an argument, there was one incident that occurred in pulling a fire crew off a fire that caused him to place an unprecedented phone call to me.

The situation was that a lightning strike had started a small fire to the east of Trutch which was at mile 300 on the highway. I contacted the chief of the Trutch Indian Band and arranged for him to send in eight men. We did this by a Beaver aircraft from Fort Nelson, they were landed on an abandoned airstrip from seismic exploration and walked across country to the fire. Food and equipment including a radio had all been sent in with one of the loads. The progress on the fire went well and after three days they radioed to let me know they were ready to come out. That day there was not an aircraft of any sort to be had within a full days flying. When I advised them that it wouldn’t be until at least the next day, their only response was that they were a bit low on food.

I called Fort St. John, Sterling was away and I had to deal with the Deputy. He decided he would wait until the next day before sending out for an airplane. That night a heavy rainstorm moved in and the following day we had an inversion that draped a thick layer of fog over the whole Trutch area. Apparently late in the day a plane was dispatched to the area but had to turn back because of the fog. That evening I found out that a Bell Helicopter was working for one of the oil companies in the Trutch area. I drove the hundred miles down to Trutch finally found the pilot and explained the situation.  The next morning on the second try he was able to get into our fire camp and brought them out two at a time. While I waited for the crew, I called Fort St. John on the truck mobile and left word with the dispatcher as to what was happening. We went back and got the equipment a few days later.

Enter the phone call – “You didn’t wait for a plane to arrive.”

“Sterling the last I had heard is that a plane wouldn’t be arranged for until the next day which would mean its arrival another day later. My crew were low on food I found a helicopter that would do the job and there would be no ferrying charges”. I stopped and waited for him to reply.

Finally after a few seconds, “”Okay, I’m glad it worked out”.

It was never discussed again.