The job of a ranger is, of course, protection first of all. Law enforcement didn’t turn out to be too big at Crater Lake. They never had any real serious problem of that nature. But we kept signs up, everything open, and gave information to the tourist. [Speaking of] helping out visitors to the park, I remember we had a series of emergency telephones through the park in the deep snow country. When someone would get in trouble they would get their way to one of these emergency telephones to call for help. We would go help them. I recall one morning I was patrolling down the road and ran into a couple that had been stranded all night in deep snow. They were right by one of these phones and the sign there said,” Emergency Telephone.” They were cold and in pretty bad shape and I said, “Why didn’t you go to the phone and give us a call so we could help you out?” The guy said, “ Well, I saw the sign but it said “In case of emergency only.” I guess they figured they didn’t really have an emergency cause they were still in pretty good shape.
A lot of our work at that time was custodial. Maintaining the checking station, counting visitors, taking care of the receipts. In the summer, of course, is when the business really picked up and I’m sure the numbers are a lot greater now than when I was there. We used to get a quarter million visitors a year. I’m sure it is way over that now (5). It is one of the scenic gems of the [national park] system. Crater Lake is not a park where people spent a long period of time like some national parks where they go spend several weeks. It’s more like a day or two, then go on your way.
When I was there we built a boat house on Wizard Island to house the boats that took passengers on the lake. It was, and I’m sure still is, a very outstanding trip. Fishing was not a big deal on the lake. The original fish were planted and there was fishing during the time we were there.
