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Game Warden's Lament
by Mike Hart
280 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #00-0096; ISBN 1-55212-431-2; US$26.50, C$30.50, EUR22.00, £15.50
Stories of adventures and misadventures told of a time when wildlife and natural resources were plentiful and the Chief Rangers ruled the land.
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about the book about the author sample chapter catalogue info
About the Book
The author uses a collection of short stories to introduce rascals and characters who depend upon fish and wildlife resources for recreation, sustenance and livelihood. Night hunting poachers, trappers illegally working game preserves, unfriendly anglers, the terror and tragedy of wildlife encounters gone bad, and Aboriginal persons resisting government encroachment on treaty and traditional rights for fish and wildlife resources; all provide a rich background for stories of adventure and misadventure.
The author's stories share with the reader the emotions, smells, sounds, and scenery of lonely wilderness patrols when the Game Warden's bush lore and law enforcement skills are put to use in dangerous situations.
During a career spanning twenty five years in fish and wildlife law enforcement and management, the author became increasingly aware that the lonely and often dangerous job of the Conservation Officer was little known or understood by most people unless they were dependent on fish and wildlife resources for sustenance, livelihood, or recreation. Rural people know the Conservation Officer as the 'Game Warden'. Regardless of changes in official titles and responsibility, the Conservation Officer continues to be known as the Game Warden by those with whom he comes in contact.
Although Conservation Officers continue to seek out persons breaking fish and game laws and use investigation and arrest to bring law breakers before the courts; the officer's work today is not the same as it was thirty years ago. What has changed over the years since the author began his sub-arctic patrols is the way the job is done. For many years, officers worked wilderness patrols alone and without radio communication. Claiming overtime was rarely practiced. Hunting and fishing with government equipment during quiet times made up a small part of the difference. The Department always came out ahead.
It was a time when Chief Rangers ruled the land with an iron hand and unions with their grievances and work-to-rule were only a quiet whisper for another time. It was a time when law enforcement was often conducted in ways that would, today, get an officer fired, and worse.
Mike Hart shares with us stories that capture tragedy, courage, and humour. Some of the stories shared include death and grief. Some of the stories involving wildlife are brutal. That is the way it was.
About the Author
After graduation from the Ontario Forest Ranger School in 1967, Mike Hart was about to leave Canada to begin a forestry career in Australia when he was recruited as a Conservation Officer by the Ontario Department of Lands and Forests. Transferred to the Moosonee Deputy Chief Ranger Base, the author began a fish and wildlife law enforcement and management career that would take him from the Hudson Bay and James Bay frontiers to the magnificent Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers flowing through rural and urban south eastern Ontario.
Sample Chapter: Mary, Mother of Anglers
THE FIELD OFFICERS AT THE COCHRANE and Timmins Chief Ranger Bases, all four of us, were eager to get started on angling license enforcement. It would be a competition to see who got the first charge and who got the most charges the first month of angler checks. That's how resources conservation and law enforcement worked. Team work and competition. We knew how to have fun. The green light to start lying charges was given by the Senior Conservation Officer in January 1970.I was working a series of small speckled trout lakes north west of Cochrane and found a group of two anglers fishing in the middle of a small lake. The anglers had the allowed number of lines out -- four -- and a few trout were scattered about around the ice holes. A little fire was cheerfully blazing away and a steaming tea can was hanging from a heavy green stick leaning over the fire.
The anglers had walked out onto the ice. Their wood toboggan was tipped on its side providing a wind break for the fire. A couple of back packs, a six inch diameter ice auger, and a supply of split wood was lying on the ice near the toboggan. All the comforts of home.
Approaching the nearest angler, I went through the usual greeting.
"Hello, nice day eh!"
"Yup, cold though."
"Got your license on you?"
"Which one? I've got several different kinds."
"I'm only interested in your angling license."
"Oh, yeah. Okay. Let me dig it out." Getting an angling license out on a cold winter day is a treat. It is usually carried in a wallet that is jammed into a pants back pocket. The big front zipper on a snow suit has to be unzipped, then you have to twist and struggle under a wool mackinaw jacket and sweater to dig out the wallet. Then the angler has to pick around through the wallet looking for the fishing license among a multitude of other little pieces of paper. Hands get cold and fingers get numb and contents sometimes blow away in the wind. A visit from the Game Warden can be a wonderful attitude adjuster.
"Geeze, it was a good day until you came along."
The guy who started to market the little clear plastic envelopes that could be attached to a snow suit with a big, heavy duty diaper pin made a fortune.
The angling license is finally found.
"Thank you very much, sir. Have a nice day."
I walked the short distance over to the second angler. Like the first guy, this fellow was all bundled up in a black snowsuit, a big red wool toque pulled down over ears and forehead. Black always makes guys look bigger and bulkier than they really are.
I went through the standard greeting again and asked for the person's angling license.
"Don't have one."
"You don't have one. Why not?"
"Not buying one. Don't need one."
I dug into a big pocket sewed to the outside leg of my snowsuit and pulled out my note book and pen. I stuck the pen down inside my mitt to get it thawed out so it would write. We had tried using a pencil in cold weather until a sharp defense lawyer became very critical of pencil work in officer note books. They are funny about stuff like that. Notebooks are supposed to be permanent records of facts taken at the time of investigation. No erasable pencil scrawls allowed.
"Look, you have had three months to learn about the angling license requirement and get your license. I don't have any choice but to charge you with angling without a license."
Okay, I had a choice, but warning time was over. This guy was getting charged. I started to work on my 'laying a charge' mental state.
"I need some identification from you. I'm charging you with angling without a license," said I, in my firm but fair law enforcement officer tone.
"Hey, Mac, I just told you I don't need a license to fish."
"Yes, you do. Only females and people younger than eighteen and older than sixty five can fish without a license."
"Well, go figure," said the fishing criminal in a neutral sounding voice.
A bad feeling started to work through me.
"Oh, oh," I said. I took a good look at my opponent. Couldn't be, I thought.
Lord, if this was a woman, she had a third eyebrow growing under her nose. She should have at least had the decency to pluck her mustache. Geeze, imagine kissing that. Thoughts like that go through your head in moments of stress.
Cochrane, where men are men and the women are too.
"So, are you suggesting that you could be a female?" I said. That was not really how I wanted to pose the question, but, my sense of objectivity wasn't in harmony anymore.
"Yep."
Now this next utterance was, in retrospect pretty bad, "Can you show me proof?" I asked. What I meant was for 'her' to dig out 'her' purse and show me some kind of identification that said Mrs., Ms., or Miss.
I think she took my request the wrong way because 'she' got really agitated.
Right about then the angling partner strolled over.
"Hey, Mary, what's the problem?"
I felt pretty small. I guess in the heat of the moment I lost my professional powers of observation. The third eyebrow had locked me into one frame of mind. The angler was male and had to have a license.
I'm just glad Mary wasn't a nasty woman. She could have let me write her up, then gone to court to plead not guilty. Now that would have been something.
-- -- --
The Ontario angling license lasted the better part of one year and then the government revoked the regulation. The license was so hated that it became an election issue. Politics.
Anyone who bought the license could, upon surrendering the license get the license fee back. I got my money back but now wish I had kept the license for framing.
Around 1980, the Ontario government reintroduced the angling license. We will never get rid of it again. The revenue generated is just too great. Some of the money even goes back to managing fisheries, instead of snow plowing and government salaries.
