All the wildfire news recently dredged up my memories of the summer I spent as a Jr. Forest Ranger when I was sixteen. The program was run by the then Ontario Department of Lands and Forests. You had to be sixteen years old and a male in those days – it was a manly thing, so girls did not qualify. The Jr. Rangers were sent to remote parts of the province to live in a camp, with probably 40 other youths of the same age, and receive training and education and work experience about wilderness and nature and other such things - plus many things not on the curriculum.
We received our room
and board and – if memory serves - $4.50 a day. I seem to recall that
this was increased to $5.00 part way through the summer. We lived in
cabins of about a dozen or so guys each and were supervised by a ‘Foreman’ who
was probably twenty years old and two deputy foremen who were all of
seventeen. The camp consisted of the bunkhouses, showers, a dining room
and latrines – no in door washrooms. On the subject of forest fires, I do
remember that there were forest fires in the area, and we all hoped that we
would be called into action as we would have received significantly more
remuneration as fire fighters – bit sadly or possibly for the best – that did
not transpire. The forest fires were not nearly as intensive or
extensive as they are this summer.
The camp that I was
assigned to was near Minaki in the northwest corner of the Province. The
closest town was Kenora which, on Googling, I discovered was about 50 km
away. We were on a lake – again, if memory serves me - Rough Rock
Lake. On Googling Rough Rock Lake, I found that there is such a
place – the hit turned up Rough Rock Lodge and Outpost – probably not the old
JR. Forest Camp but close enough.
Delving into my memories
of that summer, I found that I don’t have a great deal of specifics. We
did a lot of swimming in the lake. The food was quite good and plentiful
as was necessary for a group of “hard working” teenage boys. The camp
cook was someone who had worked on the railroad as a cook, so he was good at
feeding groups of men and didn’t take any crap from anyone. I don’t
remember much about the work aspect of the summer except learning how to build
fire breaks to fight forest fires – hence my thoughts about this
experience. We did go into Kenora a couple of times to dances and we did
find people of the opposite sex to dance with – but nothing more in my
experience or reports from other campers. In my recollection, we
played a lot of softball and volleyball which I enjoyed because of my height if
not my natural athletic ability.
One memorable event
was a fly-in visit from a celeb – it turned out to be NHLer George
Armstrong. He naturally made quite an impression on us. However, I
don’t remember anything about the specifics of what he talked about. What
else was there? Well, there was the time we all went on a forced march at
5:00 in the morning because of some flagrant violation of the rules – It struck
me as unfair because I hadn’t been involved but there was the camaraderie of
everyone being in it together. There was also the three-day canoe trip,
which was my introduction to canoeing, which left me with mixed feelings about
that mode of transportation.
Finally, and most
memorably, there was the last night before returning to my home in
Toronto. The foreman managed to get a plentiful supply of wine for a
celebration of which the guys liberally imbibed. That night was a bit of
a blur - so it’s ‘say no more, say no more, to quote Monty Python. I will
say that it was a bit surprizing that no one drowned or got lost as a result.
I did check and was
glad to see that the program is still going strong with the now Ministry of
Natural Resources. It is now called the Stewardship Youth Ranger
Program. There is no mention of gender in the requirements for
application, so I assume it is open to males and females. It pays
“minimum wage” which is an improvement over the $4.50 or $5.00 a day. As
I recall, from another summer job at the time, the minimum wage was $1.25 an
hour. The requirements are being born in 2006, attending school, a resident of
Ontario, and eligible to work in Canada. Based on my long-ago experience,
I would definitely recommend it for young people today.
It was an experience I
am glad I didn’t miss.
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