1 00:00:02,730 --> 00:00:11,750 Okay. Got it. So the first thing is that we were on Lookouts two different times. 2 00:00:11,750 --> 00:00:18,780 So I was on a lookout in 1963 and we were together on a lookout in 1967. 3 00:00:19,020 --> 00:00:25,950 So all your questions will have two kinds of sets of answers, and they're quite different. I'm sure. 4 00:00:26,820 --> 00:00:29,770 And that's fine. That's good. Yeah. 5 00:00:29,830 --> 00:00:40,140 And both of you just, you know, go ahead and give your, you know, your own stories as they come for whatever lookout you were on. 6 00:00:40,800 --> 00:00:47,270 So I'm. You were on which lookouts. 7 00:00:48,890 --> 00:00:53,330 Well, in 1963, I was on Johnson Lookout, Johnson Peak. 8 00:00:53,330 --> 00:00:57,320 It's in the Flathead National Forest in the Talley Lake Ranger district. 9 00:00:58,200 --> 00:01:05,670 And in 1967 we were on Whitefish Lookout, same National Forest and Ranger District. 10 00:01:08,270 --> 00:01:11,020 One of the interesting things I think is that, you know, 11 00:01:11,060 --> 00:01:17,730 I was raised in Whitefish and I grew up there and so I was always around all of that kind of stuff. 12 00:01:17,750 --> 00:01:26,840 My brother had been on Ashley Lookout, which is also in the Flathead Valley. He's five years older than I. 13 00:01:27,450 --> 00:01:34,250 And so I went up to that lookout in there, and I've been hiking and backpacking and all of that kind of stuff forever. 14 00:01:34,700 --> 00:01:38,110 But Jan has a different story. Oh, yeah. 15 00:01:38,480 --> 00:01:45,770 No, I grew up in Seattle. I was better able to kind of just bear with me. 16 00:01:46,360 --> 00:01:55,480 That's great. I was better at learning how to ride the bus or the ferry or, you know, all that kind of thing. 17 00:01:55,690 --> 00:02:00,940 I had never seen a boost in my whole life. I had never seen a bear. 18 00:02:00,940 --> 00:02:05,680 I've been to Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. That was my association. 19 00:02:06,160 --> 00:02:14,710 And I'd never even seen a gun. And one of the first things that happened to me is I had gone to town to get food and do laundry and everything, 20 00:02:14,920 --> 00:02:20,049 and I was going up the Lookout Road and the car might come around the corner and there's a big 21 00:02:20,050 --> 00:02:27,470 man in the middle of the road pointing a rifle at the car and who scared the liver out of me? 22 00:02:27,490 --> 00:02:39,730 I mean, yes. The funniest thing is that was he was Elmer Canale, who knew Claire's father, and he recognized the car and he said, oh, you're okay. 23 00:02:39,970 --> 00:02:47,770 He was actually up there because people from one of the hotels on the lake had been dumping raw sewage on his land. 24 00:02:48,460 --> 00:02:55,110 And he was there. He was going to catch them, fix the problem and fix the problem myself. 25 00:02:55,130 --> 00:03:00,630 But he had his rifle. WOOD That is sort of you know, I'll never forget that day. 26 00:03:01,090 --> 00:03:04,090 I'd never seen that before. I can imagine. 27 00:03:06,020 --> 00:03:14,430 So. I was just wondering if maybe an easy way to do this would just be to start with you. 28 00:03:14,870 --> 00:03:26,080 Yeah. You know, first 1963 and Johnson and just we can talk about that or do you think it would be better to combine the two of them? 29 00:03:26,530 --> 00:03:32,200 No, I think doing one at a time makes a lot of sense. Okay. Why don't I talk with you then, since that was the earliest. 30 00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:40,890 That sounds good. So how did you end up being a lookout up there? 31 00:03:43,580 --> 00:03:50,030 And where were you? You weren't. I had just you know, I graduated from high school in 63. 32 00:03:50,030 --> 00:04:00,589 So it was right after I graduated from high school and I went to work and put in an application to work for the Forest Service and cleared trails. 33 00:04:00,590 --> 00:04:09,860 And I'm going to be a so-called smoke chaser. And and the opportunity came up that they had not hired anyone to man Johnson Lookout. 34 00:04:10,310 --> 00:04:17,000 They did have someone that actually that's the other actually in whitefish lookouts with the other two lookouts in that Ranger district. 35 00:04:17,630 --> 00:04:24,890 And so I took that opportunity. I knew kind of what it was like because as I said, my brother had been on one. 36 00:04:25,430 --> 00:04:28,880 And so I thought that sounded good. So I did that. 37 00:04:30,500 --> 00:04:39,440 Now, tell me about Johnson. How did you get there? I figured that was about the shortest route was about two miles from a road. 38 00:04:39,980 --> 00:04:44,090 But the the standard way to get in was about five or six miles. 39 00:04:45,710 --> 00:04:49,910 And when we went up there the first time, they took all the way. 40 00:04:50,030 --> 00:04:55,250 We went to grocery stores and all the food that was going to be required for two months up there. 41 00:04:55,910 --> 00:05:01,020 And I had no idea what I was doing, but I had good advice from people that knew what they were doing. 42 00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:05,840 And they loaded up with pack string at a guard station called Star Meadows. 43 00:05:06,500 --> 00:05:15,350 And we went in with the pack stream. I hiked and the back string came up a little bit later, and that's how I got in. 44 00:05:16,010 --> 00:05:21,500 Had you ever worked with a pack string before? I know you didn't. And I didn't then either. 45 00:05:21,650 --> 00:05:24,950 You know, they had a they had somebody who knew what he was doing. 46 00:05:25,070 --> 00:05:30,530 Right. But I helped load the the containers that were put on the on the animals, on the mules. 47 00:05:31,130 --> 00:05:35,510 And then we hiked in and waited until the back string got there. 48 00:05:37,190 --> 00:05:40,560 So. And then how long were you up there? 49 00:05:42,300 --> 00:05:50,070 We started in just before the 4th of July, and I came down in late August, 50 00:05:51,450 --> 00:05:58,950 and I came down because I was starting college on the and Tacoma Pacific, both in universities where I was going. 51 00:05:59,490 --> 00:06:05,040 And I needed to get a couple of things organized before I went to college. 52 00:06:05,040 --> 00:06:07,560 So that's why I came down toward the end of August. 53 00:06:08,100 --> 00:06:17,040 It was the fire season wasn't quite over when I came down, so they had to send a replacement up for just a few days. 54 00:06:17,040 --> 00:06:20,580 But that's a whole nother story and it became a mess. 55 00:06:20,590 --> 00:06:26,460 But anyway, we did that, so we were up there for about two months. 56 00:06:28,230 --> 00:06:32,190 And did you? What can you tell me about the look at itself? 57 00:06:32,190 --> 00:06:35,640 What it looked like? What was in there? Sure. 58 00:06:35,650 --> 00:06:37,540 I can send you a picture too. 59 00:06:37,560 --> 00:06:47,040 I think Johnson was a little bit unusual because it had a a cabin like you would normally think that sits on stilts that was on the ground. 60 00:06:47,700 --> 00:06:56,400 And then it had a tower that was made out of steel construction that was 90 feet tall after that to the side. 61 00:06:57,090 --> 00:07:03,710 And so I had to my responsibility I have a picture that I can I can send it to you. 62 00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:09,660 It's an electronic version. And if you want me to email that to you and I'll leave you a picture of the whitefish. 63 00:07:09,660 --> 00:07:17,160 Look out and that one, and then maybe a couple of shots from what we could see would be great. 64 00:07:18,030 --> 00:07:24,489 Okay. And Johnson was. It was it was fairly bald. 65 00:07:24,490 --> 00:07:27,910 On top of that, on top of the mountain, there were very many trees. 66 00:07:27,910 --> 00:07:31,420 And so they made a helipad on top of the mountain also. 67 00:07:31,420 --> 00:07:35,469 So that and I have no idea why that was there, 68 00:07:35,470 --> 00:07:44,620 but there was a helicopter and I was supposed to maintain that also and and chop down some other trees was part of my some responsibility. 69 00:07:44,620 --> 00:07:49,830 But I had to go up the 90 foot tower three times a day at least. 70 00:07:49,840 --> 00:07:52,120 But I spent a fair amount of time up there. 71 00:07:52,600 --> 00:08:02,890 But most of the time, as I was down below and it had the standard equipment that was in a lookout, so it had a firefighter had a stove, a wood stove. 72 00:08:03,820 --> 00:08:10,390 We had a radio to communicate with with whitefish to the Tyler Lake Ranger district. 73 00:08:11,140 --> 00:08:20,170 And we also had a telephone, and the telephone was just a galvanized wire that ran from insulator and install insulator through the trees. 74 00:08:20,590 --> 00:08:24,280 And it connected me to Star Meadows and asked to look at. 75 00:08:24,280 --> 00:08:29,620 So there were three of us on the cell phone line and and so we could talk over 76 00:08:29,620 --> 00:08:34,420 that as much as we wanted it at any time of day that people were available. 77 00:08:35,410 --> 00:08:42,670 So we used that for social events and we also played chess at night over the telephone. 78 00:08:43,330 --> 00:08:47,080 And all the chess locations are and are lettered and numbered. 79 00:08:47,080 --> 00:08:50,320 So it was pretty easy to play chess over there, over the telephone. 80 00:08:52,210 --> 00:08:58,060 And so it had a a firefighter, a stove, bed, low cost and a table. 81 00:08:58,180 --> 00:09:04,600 And that was about it. And the same kinds of things were on top of the tower, except there was no cable, no bed, no. 82 00:09:04,630 --> 00:09:12,310 So they just had a firefighter. The radio and the telephone were up there and I'm sure you know, 83 00:09:12,310 --> 00:09:19,000 the firefighters and as boss and saving device that's in the center of the lookout tower. 84 00:09:19,750 --> 00:09:26,320 And I assume that it's pretty well surveyed and so report coordinates of things they know where we're we're starting from. 85 00:09:27,190 --> 00:09:32,560 The other thing that Johnson Peak had Johnson Johnson Peak, it had a weather station. 86 00:09:32,740 --> 00:09:37,930 And so every day I was supposed to take readings from the weather station and radio those. 87 00:09:37,930 --> 00:09:45,820 And in the late afternoon, I think 430 was the time that I was supposed to radio that information down to the Ranger district. 88 00:09:48,200 --> 00:09:54,349 So just in terms of the lookouts, there were two of them as what you're saying. 89 00:09:54,350 --> 00:10:00,590 There was the lookout that you or a cabin, however you want to say it, that you lived in. 90 00:10:00,920 --> 00:10:12,260 But it also had a fire finder and as well as the tower, which was actually supposed to be the lookout, the tower itself or both of them. 91 00:10:12,710 --> 00:10:17,690 I think both of them say the reason they built I was told the reason I built 92 00:10:17,690 --> 00:10:21,700 the 90 foot tower was I could see over the hill in the opposite direction. 93 00:10:21,710 --> 00:10:27,860 I could see to the west and from the top of the mountain that was obscured by trees, by timber. 94 00:10:27,860 --> 00:10:31,190 And they apparently didn't want to cut all that timber down. 95 00:10:31,820 --> 00:10:41,540 So they saw it from the ground. I could see had good visibility to the to the south and and east and those directions. 96 00:10:42,650 --> 00:10:49,250 But I could not see very well to the north or west, but from the tower I could see very well in the other directions also. 97 00:10:50,140 --> 00:10:53,170 How did you access both of them there? 98 00:10:53,500 --> 00:10:56,890 Well, they're the one on the ground was just through a door. Okay. 99 00:10:56,920 --> 00:11:00,840 The tower steps just climbed back and forth. 100 00:11:00,850 --> 00:11:05,080 It wasn't a ladder. They were there. It was a staircase that went up the 90 foot. 101 00:11:06,670 --> 00:11:11,190 And did it have a trapdoor or something that you got it right? It had a trapdoor, right? 102 00:11:12,580 --> 00:11:18,220 Yeah. That must have been kind of daunting the first time or so to go up there. 103 00:11:18,850 --> 00:11:25,480 It was. And when you made the trip several times on your you know, if you want to make it to make it better, 104 00:11:25,690 --> 00:11:29,589 whatever time was needed up there looking around and saw and of course, 105 00:11:29,590 --> 00:11:33,669 it didn't have anything like, you know, there was no food or anything up there. 106 00:11:33,670 --> 00:11:37,450 So yeah, most of the time was spent down below. 107 00:11:37,990 --> 00:11:44,750 Right? So what were your duties you said you had to do? 108 00:11:44,750 --> 00:11:52,010 Whether? Yes. So it was actually for fires I had been given. 109 00:11:52,610 --> 00:11:56,120 There was a whole bunch of very small trees. 110 00:11:56,120 --> 00:12:07,220 It was almost like like a small stand of lodgepole pine that was just to the southwest of the look out of the ground station, the ground part of it. 111 00:12:07,670 --> 00:12:14,050 And they wanted me to cut that down. So I worked on that daily for a long time. 112 00:12:14,060 --> 00:12:20,719 It was a pretty big area, but I managed to chop all those trees down, so I had that to do and then, you know, 113 00:12:20,720 --> 00:12:27,049 just all the tasks of life and and as I'm sure everybody understands, 114 00:12:27,050 --> 00:12:32,870 water is a big issue because you're on top of the mountain and water is never on the go for months. 115 00:12:33,620 --> 00:12:39,410 So it was about a mile to the spring that I had access to and. 116 00:12:40,970 --> 00:12:43,370 And the early part of when I was up there, 117 00:12:43,430 --> 00:12:55,220 I would go down once a week with a large cam or a it was called an Indian pump to bring back five gallons of water. 118 00:12:55,910 --> 00:12:59,620 And then I realized, well, I mean, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. 119 00:12:59,900 --> 00:13:00,440 After that, 120 00:13:00,440 --> 00:13:09,800 I just put it on every day and it was kind of like a morning walk and walk down in the spring and fill up or two gallon canteen and take it back up. 121 00:13:09,890 --> 00:13:14,660 So I just took a hike every morning and brought back two gallons of water. 122 00:13:15,980 --> 00:13:19,070 Where was the spring in in terms of direction? 123 00:13:19,070 --> 00:13:24,680 Was it, you know, north, southeast, west of the lookout? It was to the north northeast where I was. 124 00:13:25,520 --> 00:13:29,600 And, you know, if it's. Have you been back to the lookout at all since you left? 125 00:13:30,020 --> 00:13:37,850 No, I've never I've never gone back. No. I'm always curious about whether those springs still exist. 126 00:13:37,870 --> 00:13:40,930 I know that some of them do. I'm sure they do. 127 00:13:41,260 --> 00:13:46,470 Yeah. Yeah. So were there other outbuildings up there? 128 00:13:47,780 --> 00:13:54,770 No, it wasn't outhouses, but no other outbuildings, no other cabins or anything like that. 129 00:13:57,030 --> 00:14:03,870 Did you sleep in the in the one that sat on the ground and you said there was a bed in there? 130 00:14:04,200 --> 00:14:08,940 Yeah, there was a bed in there. The one on the on the stilts and a very small cabin. 131 00:14:09,010 --> 00:14:13,830 I'm trying to think of. I bet it wasn't any more than six feet on a side. 132 00:14:14,460 --> 00:14:20,280 It was a very small contraption on top of that top of the stilts. 133 00:14:21,820 --> 00:14:28,809 I've seen pictures of some of those, and I think that they look like they're not even very sturdy. 134 00:14:28,810 --> 00:14:35,800 But they it must have been when the wind blew. Did it blow my way? 135 00:14:35,860 --> 00:14:40,450 It a little bit, but it was I don't even think there were any guy wires on it. 136 00:14:40,450 --> 00:14:46,550 It was just bolted together. Big steel structure be. 137 00:14:48,670 --> 00:14:53,290 And what how did you cook your meals? Was a wood stove. 138 00:14:54,100 --> 00:15:03,960 And that was the greatest things about it was that it was a 19 I think it was a 1938 publication. 139 00:15:03,970 --> 00:15:13,570 I was On The Lookout cookbook and that was up there and showed how to make bread and how to regulate an oven and all that kind of stuff. 140 00:15:13,660 --> 00:15:18,580 And as a matter of fact, Jan still uses the Look Out cookbook to bake bread. 141 00:15:19,060 --> 00:15:29,320 It was a great little cookbook. So, yeah, I just it was a wood stove that was used for for heating when needed and also for cooking. 142 00:15:31,740 --> 00:15:36,209 And of course, there was no yeah, there was no refrigerator or anything like that. 143 00:15:36,210 --> 00:15:46,290 So refrigeration was, someone had buried a milk can and on the ground thinking that it was the ground was cooler than the air. 144 00:15:46,830 --> 00:15:53,309 And that was supposed to be where I was. In fact, I did. That's where I kept eggs and a couple of things like that with some refrigeration. 145 00:15:53,310 --> 00:16:02,490 But I think eggs were just about the only thing I took up there that required refrigeration anyway for any long, long period of time. 146 00:16:04,930 --> 00:16:11,030 What types of meals did you cook besides bread? You know, I. 147 00:16:11,170 --> 00:16:14,620 I really don't remember a lot about what I cooked. 148 00:16:14,900 --> 00:16:20,490 Know, like I'd made. Whatever you can find out of a can. 149 00:16:20,490 --> 00:16:27,660 I'm sure that I know that the big treat was the times that I opened the camp, and that was definitely a treat. 150 00:16:27,710 --> 00:16:31,230 I'm sure I know I have any kind of camp protein I could find. 151 00:16:31,760 --> 00:16:41,819 And a friend came up once and brought a steak that was very lovely and I was always looking for grouse or something like that. 152 00:16:41,820 --> 00:16:50,400 That would be some threat to me. And I did successfully kill one grouse to. 153 00:16:52,090 --> 00:17:00,670 Have some fresh meat, but that was it. So I'm assuming you didn't have anybody that would come and bring you vegetables or whatever? 154 00:17:01,270 --> 00:17:09,160 I do not. I think I saw probably the who liked them. 155 00:17:09,690 --> 00:17:11,930 Then we'll come to that story in a little bit. 156 00:17:12,310 --> 00:17:17,620 The people who came up there to visit me, I think there were probably five that I saw over the course of the summer. 157 00:17:18,530 --> 00:17:23,030 And my boss came up one time. His name was Johnny Pike. 158 00:17:23,270 --> 00:17:31,429 And we'll hear some more stories about him. He's, in my mind, is legendary, I think. 159 00:17:31,430 --> 00:17:38,270 And Jann seem to have that story. He came up for kind of a visit, an inspection to see how things were doing. 160 00:17:38,750 --> 00:17:41,810 He sent someone up, a friend of mine, a high school friend. 161 00:17:41,990 --> 00:17:47,780 He sent up on a little scooter to bring me some fresh meat once. 162 00:17:48,320 --> 00:17:58,460 And the friend that I had had an accident on his scooter, on his way out, and he fell off and had a puncture arm punctured under his arm, 163 00:17:59,150 --> 00:18:05,780 but patched him up because back then he remembers that I saw him not too long ago and he 164 00:18:05,780 --> 00:18:12,800 remembers that big patched up on Johnson work out before he took his own scooter back. 165 00:18:16,460 --> 00:18:18,820 So I was saying about people who were there. 166 00:18:18,820 --> 00:18:26,780 And the other thing that that happened was up there, as I said, there was a health bit and I had two different times that helicopters came. 167 00:18:27,890 --> 00:18:36,590 And the first time they they dropped the guy off and he had a piece of electronic equipment there he was setting up and 168 00:18:36,590 --> 00:18:44,300 they were testing it and they were going to use this piece of electronic equipment to find fires and forest fires. 169 00:18:44,870 --> 00:18:47,309 So it was to replace the lookouts, I guess, 170 00:18:47,310 --> 00:18:55,250 since they brought this piece of equipment up and some technician worked on it for a while and then they left it and then they came back, 171 00:18:56,420 --> 00:18:59,930 I believe, a day later, and they're going to pick it up. 172 00:19:00,230 --> 00:19:06,800 And of course, what had happened in the meantime is the winds have blown something off because whatever the device was, 173 00:19:07,370 --> 00:19:11,090 I strongly suspect it was some kind of a thermal imaging system. 174 00:19:11,520 --> 00:19:17,090 They were testing out some kind of a thermal scanner that was going to survey that area. 175 00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:24,920 And then another time the helicopter came up and dropped off the young man, 176 00:19:25,610 --> 00:19:33,530 and he was to go down in the drainage just to the northeast of where I was and collect soil samples. 177 00:19:33,740 --> 00:19:36,889 And exactly why he was collecting soil samples, I don't know. 178 00:19:36,890 --> 00:19:43,250 But that was his job. And so he was getting ready to go do his job. 179 00:19:43,850 --> 00:19:48,150 And he asked me if if he saw any grouse, if he could shoot one for me. 180 00:19:48,180 --> 00:19:52,969 And I said, Oh, sure. So I was below the lookout, man. 181 00:19:52,970 --> 00:19:55,370 They're busy chopping the trees that I was talking about. 182 00:19:55,370 --> 00:20:03,110 And I heard some gunshots from across this little valley, and I said, Oh, good, I'm going to have fresh meat tonight. 183 00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:09,170 And sometime later it was it seemed like quite a while, like an hour or two later. 184 00:20:09,170 --> 00:20:19,760 It was quite a while later. As I remember it. I looked at him, shouted at me, and I looked up to the to the cabin, the piece that was on the ground. 185 00:20:20,420 --> 00:20:23,510 And here was this guy standing up there. I could see him from where I was. 186 00:20:23,510 --> 00:20:25,550 They had blood all over his t shirt. 187 00:20:26,300 --> 00:20:38,930 So I go up there and it turns out that he had encountered a bear over in this drainage and the bear had chased him up a tree and he shot the bear, 188 00:20:39,500 --> 00:20:43,700 whatever this the gun that he had. But he didn't know whether he had killed it. 189 00:20:44,390 --> 00:20:50,360 So he was afraid to come down the tree. So he did not stay in that tree for a long time. 190 00:20:51,140 --> 00:20:58,460 And he finally shimmied down. So the blood was when coming down this little tree he had scraped himself. 191 00:20:58,910 --> 00:21:05,120 So anyway, I, I did my Boy Scout thing and patched him up a little bit and then radioed down 192 00:21:05,120 --> 00:21:10,460 to the people that could contact the helicopter that he was associated with. 193 00:21:10,970 --> 00:21:15,710 And they came and picked him up and they were all just terribly grateful for all of this and so on. 194 00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:21,409 And then it came back the next day with a guy that had a real rifle and said, Well, 195 00:21:21,410 --> 00:21:26,360 they had to go down and find this bear and make sure that it wasn't just injured, it was really dead. 196 00:21:27,260 --> 00:21:30,740 And so they went back down there and the bear, in fact, was dead. 197 00:21:31,410 --> 00:21:35,299 They came back up and they were just all grateful. And they asked me what I needed. 198 00:21:35,300 --> 00:21:39,830 If I needed anything, they would bring it to me. So I said water. 199 00:21:40,640 --> 00:21:44,090 So. So they brought me 20 gallons of water. 200 00:21:44,180 --> 00:21:48,020 Oh, nice. Yeah, that was a very nice gift. 201 00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:52,730 So that was my encounters with people when I was up there. 202 00:21:53,270 --> 00:21:57,500 So that's all the encounters that you had? Yeah, that was. 203 00:21:58,400 --> 00:22:01,709 Yeah, I had. A friend of mine. 204 00:22:01,710 --> 00:22:07,230 Another friend came up and spent a night and. I don't know what they want. 205 00:22:07,230 --> 00:22:11,190 Anyone else to talk about? Elmo's Fire? Yes. 206 00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:19,170 Yeah. Tell me about your experience. Yeah, we had we had experienced the night that this friend of mine was up there, we experienced St Elmo's Fire. 207 00:22:19,820 --> 00:22:24,780 I'd heard about it from the my boss, and he said, You probably won't see it. 208 00:22:24,780 --> 00:22:33,330 It's a very rare occurrence. Well, virtually every thunderstorm that came by, I saw St Elmo's Fire, so I saw it pretty frequently. 209 00:22:34,050 --> 00:22:37,590 That's an impressive, impressive thing to see. 210 00:22:38,130 --> 00:22:46,590 What did it look like? Like a blue glow on the end of the antennas, on the radio antennas that were sucking up in the air. 211 00:22:47,610 --> 00:22:58,330 It was just an eerie blue glow. So you could actually see outside the lookout where the antennas were to see the blue glow. 212 00:22:58,900 --> 00:23:08,200 Yeah, especially on that one was a tower. I mean, they were right because it was so small and the edge of the roof also, it was all metal. 213 00:23:08,830 --> 00:23:16,410 So the roof was metal also. So that. That's if it got really, really, quote unquote, hot. 214 00:23:16,670 --> 00:23:19,870 Then the roof called to the edge of the roof. 215 00:23:20,110 --> 00:23:30,790 Well, no. So when you're in this metal tower and you're in the middle of a storm, what did you do to keep yourself safe? 216 00:23:32,420 --> 00:23:38,780 We had a made sure we were grounded. There was a switch to ground and turn off the telephone. 217 00:23:39,290 --> 00:23:42,720 So you had, again, a switch to make sure that. 218 00:23:42,790 --> 00:23:51,050 So if lightning hit the hit, the the telephone wire would not run up to the receiver where I was sitting. 219 00:23:51,710 --> 00:23:57,500 And then we sat on a stool was in that tower also. 220 00:23:57,890 --> 00:23:59,990 We didn't had. I thought it was kind of funny. 221 00:23:59,990 --> 00:24:08,090 Maybe it wasn't funny, but it had insulators upside down on its feet, those big things that you see on telephone poles from way back once. 222 00:24:08,620 --> 00:24:12,770 So those were on the bottom of the legs. I thought about that in a long time. 223 00:24:14,090 --> 00:24:22,010 Now that's all I stood on, sat on the stool, made sure you were grounded and disconnected the telephone and waited the storm out. 224 00:24:22,940 --> 00:24:26,510 Yeah. We were supposed to be up there during storms to. Now. 225 00:24:26,550 --> 00:24:31,780 Up in the tower. Up in the tower starts. Did you have many storms? 226 00:24:33,460 --> 00:24:39,160 Yeah. I mean, that part of Montana, they're pretty frequent. Afternoon and evening thunderstorms are pretty common. 227 00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:46,140 So I don't remember how many times I was up there during times, but I know we had them pretty frequently. 228 00:24:48,740 --> 00:25:00,890 How about fires? You have fires while you're there. I found one that that was a legitimate fire that I reported, but I didn't see any others. 229 00:25:01,010 --> 00:25:05,570 So I had one. It was a small fire. They sent a small crew out and took care right away. 230 00:25:08,700 --> 00:25:12,030 Now, you mentioned that you played chess at night. 231 00:25:12,420 --> 00:25:15,450 What else did you do to keep yourself occupied while you were there? 232 00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:23,070 I read a lot. And I you know, I regret now that I didn't keep a journal or anything like that. 233 00:25:23,460 --> 00:25:26,730 That should have been something I'd done. Nobody talked about that. 234 00:25:27,990 --> 00:25:33,690 I didn't do that. But the cards of myself, solitaire and things like that. 235 00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:40,210 But most of it was reading. Good stuff to do. 236 00:25:40,900 --> 00:25:49,960 Yeah. How about wildlife? Did you have any experiences outside of girls in one year coming with your friend? 237 00:25:50,560 --> 00:26:02,260 Yeah, there were deer around on a fairly regular basis and I did see a lynx that and I took a picture where I thought the lynx was. 238 00:26:02,260 --> 00:26:11,950 And I looking at picture now and I can't find it. But anyway, I, I'm sure I saw a lynx one time, but I didn't see anything else up there. 239 00:26:12,730 --> 00:26:17,860 I didn't see any bears. But that's they they added a story about after I left. 240 00:26:20,230 --> 00:26:28,600 Allegedly. The night that I left, the guy that replaced me said that a bear broke into that cabin that was on the ground where he was sleeping, 241 00:26:29,170 --> 00:26:35,770 and he climbed up on top of the roof to escape the bear, and the bear ransacked his food and all that kind of stuff. 242 00:26:36,700 --> 00:26:46,210 So they sent up another guy with a rifle and they were sat in the cabin waiting for the bear to show up again. 243 00:26:46,930 --> 00:26:54,760 And it didn't show up. And then it rained. So that was the end of the event for them. 244 00:26:55,240 --> 00:27:02,480 But they were amazed that I had missed the bear encounter and I'd never seen the bear around at all. 245 00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:09,520 But I know that when we first got up there, there was a so-called bear to the door that we had to take off a lookout, 246 00:27:10,150 --> 00:27:13,670 and that was essentially a door that had nails pounded through. 247 00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:18,640 So if somebody tried to. Ed that despite the end of nails. 248 00:27:20,580 --> 00:27:24,720 May I take that off before you open the cabin or just opening up inside? 249 00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:28,860 I know that you have trouble with rodents either, so. 250 00:27:29,690 --> 00:27:32,820 Yeah, well, that's good. Yeah. 251 00:27:34,430 --> 00:27:37,980 And you talk about the spiky mats and that. 252 00:27:40,100 --> 00:27:48,230 My husband worked for a while in the Bob Marshall and they had those for bears in front of cabins and they call them the welcome mat. 253 00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:54,440 Oh, okay. So I guess it's kind of the same thing. 254 00:27:54,980 --> 00:27:57,890 Yeah, I'm sure it's the same kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. 255 00:27:58,730 --> 00:28:06,470 So did you have any special stories or anything about them that we're missing here for just for Johnson? 256 00:28:07,430 --> 00:28:12,890 No. I think the big story for me is that the helicopter events and especially the guy that. 257 00:28:13,970 --> 00:28:16,970 That got treed by a bear. Yeah. 258 00:28:19,300 --> 00:28:28,120 The other. It's kind of a coincidence, I guess later in in in my career, as I you know, 259 00:28:28,490 --> 00:28:40,550 I was a research scientist working for a an Army research and development lab in Northern Virginia, where I spent 40 years of working life. 260 00:28:41,270 --> 00:28:46,460 And that lab was called the Night Vision Lab, and we were developing thermal imaging systems. 261 00:28:47,060 --> 00:28:55,280 So I am betting that I saw a real early version of a thermal imaging system on top of Johnson Mountain in 1963. 262 00:28:55,560 --> 00:29:00,890 So but I didn't see it again until, I don't know, 1990 or something like that. 263 00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:04,610 So they were much more advanced when I saw it as part of a career. 264 00:29:05,180 --> 00:29:09,830 But the light went on and you said, I bet that's the same thing. You're the person. 265 00:29:10,580 --> 00:29:28,290 Yeah, that's pretty cool. So I'm assuming your experiences there led to your wanting to go to be a lookout with Jan then on Whitefish Mountain? 266 00:29:29,190 --> 00:29:31,650 I think that's that's probably probably right. 267 00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:41,250 I mean, that was my summer job was working for the Forest Service and I'd spent the other two summers between between those years at Star Meadows. 268 00:29:41,850 --> 00:29:46,080 We were a couple of us for Station up there, and we were smoke chasers. 269 00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:50,999 And then the opportunity to be on Whitefish Lookout came up. 270 00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:54,460 And so we grabbed that. Then. 271 00:29:54,510 --> 00:29:59,550 Were you two married when you were at Johnson, or did you meet sometime in their. 272 00:30:00,820 --> 00:30:05,560 We met some time and there we met a Pacific Lutheran University where we were both students. 273 00:30:05,780 --> 00:30:09,130 Okay. And we got married in 66. 274 00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:15,450 1967, also the summer that we were on Whitefish Lookout. 275 00:30:16,020 --> 00:30:19,990 That was the so-called summer of the Grizzly or Night of the Grizzly, right. 276 00:30:21,630 --> 00:30:26,070 So that happened, I believe, in August, early August, when we were on Whitefish Slope there. 277 00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:36,340 Yeah. Yeah. Could you hear any of that from the the you know, the communications going on that night? 278 00:30:37,810 --> 00:30:40,990 No, that was on a that was all national park. 279 00:30:42,740 --> 00:30:46,180 Right. Communication. So that was not part of the radio network we were on. 280 00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:52,690 But, you know, we were close enough to town, like, oh, jam. And somebody to drive to look at and. 281 00:30:53,950 --> 00:30:57,400 And we have a radio, you know, a commercial radio. We heard. 282 00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:05,320 Yeah, yeah, we heard news. And once a week, I went to town and got food and did laundry and water. 283 00:31:05,500 --> 00:31:11,200 I brought water from somebody's hose instead of carried there. 284 00:31:11,700 --> 00:31:18,759 It was a hole. But we and we, you know, we had a propane stove and a refrigerator and real radio. 285 00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:22,629 And yes, we could hear local news and I could buy the newspaper. 286 00:31:22,630 --> 00:31:30,340 When I went to town, I went to the library. So we were much more connected to the outside world. 287 00:31:31,770 --> 00:31:37,320 The amenities of being up there. And it was more like camping in a nice cabin. 288 00:31:37,590 --> 00:31:44,730 Yes. So what can you tell me then about whitefish? 289 00:31:46,470 --> 00:31:51,930 Well, you know, the cabinets are. How did you get there? You said you drove, but what was the route to get there? 290 00:31:53,400 --> 00:31:59,230 A little windy road from town. It wasn't very far, just a few miles up the road. 291 00:31:59,490 --> 00:32:07,920 It was a one lane road. So you had to learn if you met somebody, you had to learn where you could back up and let them pass you or whatever. 292 00:32:07,930 --> 00:32:15,440 But it was real close to town and we had local people came to visit family came to visit everybody. 293 00:32:15,470 --> 00:32:22,470 You know, it was just. Easy travel, and you drove the car right up to the lookout steps and there you were. 294 00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:32,010 So there was the road to the lookout was just off the access road to the ski resort on Big Mountain Whitefish Mountain Resort. 295 00:32:32,610 --> 00:32:37,680 And it had a sign saying Whitefish, Lookout, two miles or whatever it was. 296 00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:41,700 So we had a number of people that just came up there as visitors. 297 00:32:42,300 --> 00:32:45,560 Know. Oh, even worse. Yeah, tourists. 298 00:32:45,570 --> 00:32:50,400 We had two little boys. Oh, yeah. They came and they were camping. 299 00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:56,520 And I was appalled because nobody would have let me go in the woods by myself when I was ten years old. 300 00:32:56,940 --> 00:33:02,669 But anyway, so these little boys were camping, but they forgot to bring oil for the pancakes. 301 00:33:02,670 --> 00:33:07,020 So I gave them a little container with some oil. So they climbed up to look at. 302 00:33:07,060 --> 00:33:13,380 Yeah. So they come up to the lookout because our cabin was 45 feet only of off the ground anyway. 303 00:33:13,390 --> 00:33:24,750 So I give him oil. The next day they came back to give me the container, but inside the container they had a frog which they dropped off the lookout. 304 00:33:24,990 --> 00:33:28,260 They wanted to see what happened. Oh, no. Yeah. 305 00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:35,350 So they definitely were a little bored. And what did they. 306 00:33:35,370 --> 00:33:42,870 What was their experiment? What did it show them? You know, I have no idea what happened, but they were all excited. 307 00:33:45,810 --> 00:33:50,910 I would think so. I didn't know if you got to see the results or not. 308 00:33:51,630 --> 00:33:54,630 No, I don't remember seeing results. Yeah. 309 00:33:55,710 --> 00:34:00,510 So I was up at Firefighter Lookout once. I was volunteering up there. 310 00:34:01,170 --> 00:34:06,650 I had a pottery glass in my hand. 311 00:34:06,660 --> 00:34:09,780 I put it on the rail and it fell off. 312 00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:14,490 And so it was like 40 some feet there, too. 313 00:34:14,490 --> 00:34:17,550 And I in it, it was a nice glass. I thought, oh, no. 314 00:34:17,850 --> 00:34:22,890 And I could see it down at the bottom there. And I thought, you know, it's just got to be broken underneath. 315 00:34:22,900 --> 00:34:26,670 It was fine. Wow. And it landed on rocks. 316 00:34:26,670 --> 00:34:29,670 So who knows what happened to that little frog? 317 00:34:31,590 --> 00:34:36,600 Oh, probably smashed. Yes. Yeah. 318 00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:43,170 I think, you know, my biggest thing was that I had to go to guard school because I was also an employee. 319 00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:49,830 And I learned a lot that I'd never heard before, like the formation of the clouds and all of that. 320 00:34:50,220 --> 00:34:58,890 But our final exam was a they gave you coordinates and you were to go through the woods with your compass and find a fire. 321 00:34:59,490 --> 00:35:04,110 And there was one other girl in the in guard school. 322 00:35:04,170 --> 00:35:09,630 It was all guys, you know, in 1967, they didn't have many girls who would do that. 323 00:35:09,930 --> 00:35:11,759 So it was just the two of us. 324 00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:19,979 And I had already been embarrassed by her because she had asked, put her hand up and asked in the class how she would iron clothes on. 325 00:35:19,980 --> 00:35:24,330 Ashley Lookouts and I knew that wasn't a good question to ask. 326 00:35:24,660 --> 00:35:30,750 But anyway, at guard school, your final exam was the coordinates that gave you the coordinates. 327 00:35:30,750 --> 00:35:32,670 You were to go through the woods and find the fire. 328 00:35:32,940 --> 00:35:40,170 And this other girl, her name was Beth, she said, or her ranger said, My girl doesn't have to do that. 329 00:35:40,770 --> 00:35:44,550 But Johnny Pike said, My girl will do it. 330 00:35:45,710 --> 00:35:50,610 But I still you know, it was a real lesson for I was 22. 331 00:35:51,240 --> 00:35:54,730 What a what a wonderful message to give a young lady. 332 00:35:54,750 --> 00:35:58,080 So Johnny is really special. 333 00:35:59,430 --> 00:36:03,420 So you did everything then that Claire did as well? 334 00:36:03,870 --> 00:36:07,970 You were. Johnny expected that part time backup, huh? 335 00:36:08,010 --> 00:36:12,480 Yeah, but Johnny expected you to do exactly the same as Claire. 336 00:36:12,510 --> 00:36:17,830 Exactly right. Yeah. Well, good for him and good for you. 337 00:36:18,240 --> 00:36:27,490 Yeah, no, I mean, I think it was a real message and it was kind of that other girl kind of looked at me like, oh, but anyway, did you find the fire? 338 00:36:28,030 --> 00:36:32,950 Yes, of course I did. Yes. 339 00:36:34,220 --> 00:36:40,040 So you were taught? Well, yeah. So. So what was. 340 00:36:40,430 --> 00:36:44,690 What was life like for the two of you up in Whitefish Lookout? 341 00:36:49,070 --> 00:36:55,460 Well, we did a lot of the same. We did a lot of reading and we played games and we had a lot of visitors. 342 00:36:55,500 --> 00:37:04,130 Couple of one of Claire's friends from high school came up many nights to just sit around and watch, talk, talk. 343 00:37:04,370 --> 00:37:09,050 Yeah, we smoked cigarets in those days. And. 344 00:37:09,410 --> 00:37:15,060 Yeah, and he. So we had a social life, in a sense. 345 00:37:15,300 --> 00:37:20,190 When I went down to town, I'd see his parents and got to know people in town. 346 00:37:20,190 --> 00:37:28,589 And that was really nice because it was a whole different world really, where my parents weren't living anymore when we were out there. 347 00:37:28,590 --> 00:37:33,510 So all the people that we saw were more friends from when I was growing up. 348 00:37:33,720 --> 00:37:38,510 Yeah. My parents came to visit once from Seattle and drove up there. 349 00:37:38,910 --> 00:37:43,530 Yeah, those kind of interesting colors and came with cousins. 350 00:37:43,530 --> 00:37:52,290 And so, you know, we were close enough that we had a lot of interaction with other people and we had time. 351 00:37:52,290 --> 00:37:53,550 We couldn't leave. 352 00:37:56,700 --> 00:38:03,450 We couldn't vote leave at the same time, but we did hike around the look out pick huckleberries and, you know, do that kind of thing. 353 00:38:04,230 --> 00:38:07,830 But so did you make huckleberry pancakes or anything? 354 00:38:08,250 --> 00:38:12,090 Oh, yes. And the huckleberry pie was nice. 355 00:38:12,140 --> 00:38:15,540 Yeah. There was a good there was a good huckleberry patriot below to look at. 356 00:38:16,350 --> 00:38:25,830 Yeah, we had a bear, but it was a very quiet little bear that kind of, you know, explored the garbage pit every once in awhile. 357 00:38:27,250 --> 00:38:30,540 Yeah. And you saw Moose on the. On the road? 358 00:38:30,570 --> 00:38:33,810 I did. I had never seen a moose in my whole life. 359 00:38:34,210 --> 00:38:37,650 You know, it was in the middle of the road, and I'm supposed to keep going. 360 00:38:38,190 --> 00:38:46,470 It was the ugliest animal I could believe. But, you know, I knew enough to just wait for him. 361 00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:55,050 Did he stick around for a while or did he get, you know, let you go? 362 00:38:55,680 --> 00:39:01,950 He just ambled off after a while. Yeah. He was much less intimidating than Elmer Chernoff. 363 00:39:02,550 --> 00:39:08,340 And, you know, my saving grace with Elmer. 364 00:39:08,340 --> 00:39:16,590 I don't know if I said it, but he recognized the car I was driving because it was Claire's father's old car. 365 00:39:17,070 --> 00:39:25,600 And he said, Why are you driving Sonny's car? Well, it was hours now, so. 366 00:39:28,390 --> 00:39:38,110 So it was a lot different, mainly because we had the amenities of the cabin that, you know, that you would find anywhere, right? 367 00:39:38,710 --> 00:39:44,380 Yeah. Yeah. A little bit more primitive, but all the amenities were there. 368 00:39:45,010 --> 00:39:52,630 Well, and it had we had propane, so, you know, we didn't have to chop wood and small refrigerator, two burner stoves. 369 00:39:52,930 --> 00:39:59,229 We did have a wood stove to receive information on them and a big, big, 370 00:39:59,230 --> 00:40:07,570 huge garbage can like thing to put water in case there any other building there that you could store things in like. 371 00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:12,150 Did you have a was was there a freezer in the refrigerator or. 372 00:40:13,030 --> 00:40:15,730 No, no freezer. Just refrigerator. 373 00:40:15,910 --> 00:40:26,740 And really what you know, I went down to town about once a week for laundry, but yeah, whatever we could, you know, on farms. 374 00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:31,180 So no freezer. You couldn't, you know, you could store canned goods. 375 00:40:31,180 --> 00:40:36,729 But there was a reason to because you could drive to town and that would be my day off. 376 00:40:36,730 --> 00:40:41,530 So. Yeah, yes. Yeah. So what did your parents think of the look out? 377 00:40:44,820 --> 00:40:48,320 Did they? They didn't start with. 378 00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:55,850 You already know. And you know, when I grew up, we didn't camp or I'd never hiked around in the woods much. 379 00:40:55,850 --> 00:41:00,350 You know, I walked city streets a lot, but not the woods. 380 00:41:00,590 --> 00:41:03,830 I think my parents were they they didn't say a lot. 381 00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:08,750 They must have been kind of shocked. I think they were kind of taken aback. 382 00:41:09,290 --> 00:41:17,150 And it was a you know, I mean, my dad's idea of a good vacation was to drive to California and stay in a hotel or the restaurant. 383 00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:23,840 So it was ideal, you know, stayed in a cabin and he didn't, you know, get into that. 384 00:41:24,500 --> 00:41:29,629 But yeah, I think and I think that they never said anything, 385 00:41:29,630 --> 00:41:36,950 but I always wondered what they thought when they heard the news from Glacier and all that, that, you know, we were in a scary state. 386 00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:42,260 Yeah, sure. Although we were very safe where we were. 387 00:41:42,500 --> 00:41:45,770 Or there was a big fire and glacier out here too. 388 00:41:45,890 --> 00:41:54,690 It was after the night of the grizzly, but there was and we have had some pictures of a cloud over over the range, 389 00:41:54,690 --> 00:41:59,690 but couldn't see the fire because the teakettle mountain and that range was on the way. 390 00:42:00,470 --> 00:42:03,620 But you can see the smoke cloud hanging over that. 391 00:42:05,890 --> 00:42:12,190 Yeah. I think that fire burned quite a bit in the part of eight fires that you spotted. 392 00:42:12,460 --> 00:42:14,350 I think they were. That was the hard thing. 393 00:42:14,380 --> 00:42:22,630 I thought he'd get all excited when there's storms and there might be a fire and we got to make popcorn and sit up and watch. 394 00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:27,340 I was like, Oh, my word. How could you get excited? 395 00:42:29,240 --> 00:42:32,580 That's what you do as a lookout, though. Yeah. 396 00:42:32,620 --> 00:42:38,280 You learn? Yes. But, you know, it probably is not out of this, but it's out of all of our experience. 397 00:42:38,290 --> 00:42:44,750 We enjoyed camping. We didn't we back together a couple of times, right? 398 00:42:44,890 --> 00:42:47,620 Not very far when we lived on the East Coast for 40 years. 399 00:42:48,250 --> 00:42:57,810 And but ah, I always came back and I went backpacking any number of times in about Marshall and then also into the Virtues Wilderness Area, 400 00:42:58,330 --> 00:43:01,450 South Central Montana. And that's great. 401 00:43:01,540 --> 00:43:07,010 We love that kind of kind of life. Now we are a little short. 402 00:43:08,500 --> 00:43:15,190 Not quite so strenuous, but we do walk most every day and enjoy our time communing with nature that way. 403 00:43:16,190 --> 00:43:19,490 But more part Park City. 404 00:43:24,250 --> 00:43:27,340 No, I'm assuming that there were trails also. 405 00:43:27,340 --> 00:43:34,560 You mentioned going down and picking huckleberries and walking down there, but were there trails that you could take from the lookout or are you just. 406 00:43:34,570 --> 00:43:40,360 I don't think there were. No, not really. You kind of knew and the lookout was above. 407 00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:41,980 So you were always going down. 408 00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:50,260 And there was what Haskell based on is where the boys camp that autumn and you know, you kind of knew where you were, but there weren't really trails. 409 00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:55,980 We just go through the low brush, so. 410 00:43:57,250 --> 00:44:02,020 So any special experiences that stick out? 411 00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:11,829 The only time. I can't think of it now. I just always will remember. 412 00:44:11,830 --> 00:44:16,280 Elmer. Or excuse me, Johnny Pike. I mean, he used to talk about his wife. 413 00:44:16,300 --> 00:44:23,030 Me and Minnie. This is what we did this weekend, you know? And he just was kind of a salt of the earth, you know? 414 00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:28,000 So he came up and visited a lot also. Or he would come and check on us. 415 00:44:28,210 --> 00:44:39,490 I remember once we had gone down, we both had gone down to the outhouse and Claire could hear Johnny's truck coming up the road. 416 00:44:40,030 --> 00:44:43,420 And he ran up because we hadn't made the bed yet. 417 00:44:45,340 --> 00:44:52,600 And Johnny wouldn't like it. So it's like he is a pretty good person, though. 418 00:44:53,170 --> 00:45:02,500 He definitely was. Yeah. And he would bring other people from I guess that came from I guess other force or other districts or something like that. 419 00:45:02,980 --> 00:45:06,880 We had pretty frequent visitors from Forest Service also. 420 00:45:07,250 --> 00:45:11,230 Yeah, well, it was easy to be like that. 421 00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:19,000 You know, I can recall them so well that year. 422 00:45:21,830 --> 00:45:27,950 Did you think about going back up to the lookout or did you have other life things that were happening to you at that time? 423 00:45:29,340 --> 00:45:36,350 Let's see. Following year 67, the following year, you went on to Masters degree. 424 00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:47,850 We just had. And I had a job. I was a teacher in those days, an elementary teacher, just one teacher in Virginia, then Washington State. 425 00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:56,100 It was go ahead. And then in 69, we moved to the Washington, D.C. area. 426 00:45:56,730 --> 00:46:05,760 So and I went to graduate school there. And then the idea that we had originally was in four years, we moved back to the northwest, 427 00:46:06,270 --> 00:46:12,180 probably to the Washington State area of Montana, but they were moving back. 428 00:46:12,690 --> 00:46:16,690 But it didn't work out that way that the careers, the jobs were on the East Coast. 429 00:46:16,690 --> 00:46:22,620 So we were in Virginia, the Northern Virginia area for almost 40 years before we moved back back here, 430 00:46:23,090 --> 00:46:29,610 retired actually more than 40 years before anyway. 431 00:46:30,180 --> 00:46:35,790 Yeah, but we came back for lots of vacations and enjoyed time and glacier and a lot of 432 00:46:36,030 --> 00:46:41,760 the time spent backpacking on the in the bottom and third to those places and so. 433 00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:46,030 There were all great things that they used to come back to. 434 00:46:46,090 --> 00:46:52,170 We were in Whitefish this last month and for a memorial service. 435 00:46:52,180 --> 00:47:04,600 And it was interesting because I remember Whitefish, the town, as being such a homey little place and we walked around the town Sunday afternoon. 436 00:47:04,660 --> 00:47:12,910 It was packed with people. It was Huckleberry Days and it was all looked so prosperous and nice and but people complained. 437 00:47:12,940 --> 00:47:17,290 The local old timers, they didn't like all this new stuff. 438 00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:28,360 And on the other hand, we were in Charlottesville and it looked pretty desolate, a lot of boarded up places of businesses and that kind of thing. 439 00:47:28,540 --> 00:47:31,780 That was sad, but whitefish was booming like you wouldn't believe. 440 00:47:34,150 --> 00:47:39,850 And they tore down Claire's family home. And somebody built a monster mansion on the bow. 441 00:47:39,850 --> 00:47:43,569 No. Yeah. Where was the. 442 00:47:43,570 --> 00:47:48,760 Where was the home? It was near the city beach in Whitefish. 443 00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:54,440 Bummer. Yeah. And my dad had actually built the house, so. 444 00:47:54,980 --> 00:47:58,680 Yeah. Well, that's the way it is anymore. 445 00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:01,860 I guess it's the. The monster homes are moving in. 446 00:48:02,430 --> 00:48:10,800 Yeah. So when we came out to the to this area, we, we came for Tacoma because our daughter lives in the area. 447 00:48:11,010 --> 00:48:11,850 But when we came, 448 00:48:11,850 --> 00:48:19,620 it was really hard to find a house that would be a modest house for somebody who doesn't want to do a lot of housekeeping and that kind of thing. 449 00:48:19,710 --> 00:48:25,020 It was hard. The houses were all huge and we were downsizing. 450 00:48:25,260 --> 00:48:28,350 So it's like that's that is what it is now. 451 00:48:28,620 --> 00:48:34,560 Yeah, that's true. Well, if you. 452 00:48:36,780 --> 00:48:40,470 Would you have done it over again if you could go back to the look out? 453 00:48:40,620 --> 00:48:46,620 You know, I mean, was it worth worthwhile enough or whatever to. 454 00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:51,299 Wow. It was a great summer. Yeah, it was a great. 455 00:48:51,300 --> 00:48:54,630 What? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 456 00:48:54,660 --> 00:49:02,040 And it was sad. We when our son was born, we talked a lot about Lookout because that was fresh in our minds. 457 00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:05,370 And so he wanted to go back and see it. 458 00:49:05,550 --> 00:49:13,710 And by the time we went back and took him there, they had burned it down because it was so close to town that one, 459 00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:21,270 that people went up there and partied and, you know, it just became a hazard to maintain. 460 00:49:21,450 --> 00:49:24,870 So that was sad to see that. Yeah. Yeah. 461 00:49:25,290 --> 00:49:26,610 That they took that one down. 462 00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:39,190 There's one other little story that I remember about that Whitefish looked at that Jan didn't want to carry the laundry all the way down the 45. 463 00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:49,510 It was carrying a bunch of stuff. A bunch of stuff. So she held the laundry bag over to the rail and dropped it and it hung up on the guidewire. 464 00:49:51,950 --> 00:49:55,960 And there was like ten feet off the ground. So close to the bottom. 465 00:49:56,260 --> 00:50:04,390 Yes, it was almost there, but not. But she shinny that support pole and not at all. 466 00:50:05,230 --> 00:50:10,690 So she had or if I did, I didn't witness it. 467 00:50:10,690 --> 00:50:18,220 It I heard about later that I knew about this building that. 468 00:50:21,850 --> 00:50:25,510 Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. They got it. Exactly. 469 00:50:25,690 --> 00:50:31,520 Exactly. Besides that, I had to go to town and get food and water and. 470 00:50:31,540 --> 00:50:40,420 Yeah. Go to the Hutchinson's and fill the eye fill jugs from their homes in the backyard. 471 00:50:45,830 --> 00:50:50,070 Well, this. I'm really glad that you are here. I have this project going, right. 472 00:50:50,790 --> 00:50:53,880 That's just fantastic. And I'm glad that does. 473 00:50:54,000 --> 00:51:03,510 This friend of mine, Doug Patrick, this isn't some of a little thing out of the I think it was probably the whitest biota under worse news. 474 00:51:03,510 --> 00:51:09,860 I don't know which came out of not the hunger lawsuits because I still think that but. 475 00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:14,460 So let's talk about the project and that's how we made some contact with. 476 00:51:14,580 --> 00:51:19,530 Yeah. The daily internet had it. I know. Or maybe that's like, I mean, yeah, like. 477 00:51:19,670 --> 00:51:25,100 Yeah, yeah. So. Should I just email some of these pictures to you? 478 00:51:25,100 --> 00:51:28,460 Is that would that work? That would be great. That'd be wonderful. 479 00:51:28,580 --> 00:51:31,820 Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'll figure out how to do that. 480 00:51:32,810 --> 00:51:40,850 Okay, great. Well, you know, we've we plan to continue this program, so it's you guys who really make it happen. 481 00:51:40,970 --> 00:51:48,350 And I can't be happier than to meet people like you just who spent the time up there. 482 00:51:48,350 --> 00:51:54,740 And and I've had the time that or the chance to hear these stories because they're pretty amazing. 483 00:51:56,000 --> 00:52:08,450 And I hope you can enjoy them when when your story gets on or, you know, on onto the University of Montana's archives at the Mansfield Library. 484 00:52:08,450 --> 00:52:20,750 And you can see it here at. Send it to your friends whatever you want to do it also within our our our association's website. 485 00:52:21,380 --> 00:52:24,410 So great. Yeah. Well, thank you. 486 00:52:24,420 --> 00:52:27,810 Sorry, guys. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. 487 00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:31,080 Thank you. Very nice to meet you. You too.