Barbara: A two and a half year old girl and a three and a half month old baby.
The following year I was promoted from a GS-5 to a GS-6 with the great title of Backcountry Coordinator. It was too big a job, considering how much backcountry territory there is in two parks. I spent almost all my time that summer in Kings Canyon National Park doing backcountry work in horseback. I had always said I’d never leave the Sierra Nevada, ever.
Barbara: Even if he was promoted, but that was all right with him!
In 1953, however, Henry Schmidt (who, by that time had become an assistant chief ranger along with John Rutter), was appointed superintendent of Sitka/Glacier Bay in Alaska. He wanted me to go to Glacier Bay, so that was too much to turn down. I could leave the Sierra Nevada for Alaska. So we moved to Sitka in May or June of 1953. Although other rangers had served up there on a temporary basis (Wayne Howe and Oscar Dick come to mind), I was technically the first ranger just for Glacier Bay National Monument. I got promoted all the way up to GS-7, trading my horse and mules in Sequoia for a 50 foot ex-Coast Guard vessel. We spent winters in Sitka because there were no living facilities, except for a shack at Glacier Bay. We’d go up there for the summer and do the spring and fall patrols to establish a Park Service presence in the tremendous wilderness; it was more of a lawless area.
