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Ranger's memoirs a glimpse into Alberta's frontier history

It’s just another part of the Alberta experience — forest rangers.
GR-20090523-SAG0801-305239998-AR

It’s just another part of the Alberta experience — forest rangers. Yes, other provinces have their own forests and their own rangers but in 1920, only 15 years after the land stopped being called the Northwest Territories, this was still the great frontier. It was the wild west of Canada.

Enter Jack Glen, author of Mountain Trails. The rugged man (who looked like a young Kirk Douglas) was a former member of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. He tried a military career but was initially rejected for enlistment. After a series of other pursuits (including eventually a stint in the army) he moved to Entrance and worked for the Dominion Forest Service. A ranger was born.

What a ranger this guy was too. The job was perfect for him. In addition to his police service, he was a farm hand, a wrangler, a railway builder, a logger, an inventor and a firefighter. Thankfully he also knew how to put pen to paper to record his experiences and thoughts because his memoirs make for some pretty rich reading.

There are adventures and interesting characters named Blackie and Frenchy. The book describes them all as ‘colourful.’ They have encounters with bears, wolverines and other wild animals. They searched for missing men in the wilderness. If people like Glen didn’t live this life and write memoirs like this, Jack London would have had no reason to write The Call of the Wild.

Granted, I never much cared for Jack London but that sense of living in the wild, fighting the elements while struggling to do your job and find yourself, that notion is both quaint and manly.

As nostalgic and fantastic as it is, it would only be half as powerful without all of the glorious photographs that are included in this edition of Mountain Trails. This is the 40th anniversary of the book and it has been re-edited with the help of St. Albert’s Peter Murphy to reflect a stronger chronological order of events. Even more importantly, over 180 pictures and maps were added to illustrate what Glen went through. Even if you don’t care about forest rangers or the early days of our province, these photos are well worth flipping through. Old and young alike should be able to sense the enchantment of these experiences.

The atmospheric cohesiveness of this book is enhanced through these new additions, including a few extra written sections. Poems by Robert Service, breakout biographies of minor characters in the memoir and brief historical tutorials do much to flesh out the sense of time and place. On the other hand, they also lend the material an air of a scholarly work like a textbook or encyclopedia. I’m not sure if that was intended but it doesn’t interfere with the enjoyment of the read.

Review<br />Mountain Trails: Memoirs of an Alberta Forest Ranger in the Mountains and Foothills of the Athabasca Forest 1920-1945

Written by: Jack Glen Sr.
Foothills Research Institute
298 pages
$35.00


Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

About the Author: Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Ecology and Environment Reporter at the Fitzhugh Newspaper since July 2022 under Local Journalism Initiative funding provided by News Media Canada.
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