Through My Viewfinder

By Willem Bakhuys Roozeboom

Marguerite, Bill's wife once told him "Living with you has never been easy but it surely has never been dull", an apt description of the contents of this book. As a Documentary Film Producer his world wide assignments are all fascinating adventures. His most exciting exploits however occurred in the High Arctic where he worked for 14 years enduring "Bug infested summers" and minus 70 degree winters. For Canadians it is an "in depth" look at half of our landmass, the Arctic and the Eskimo's who live there. It is history lesson of the "White Man's exploitation of the areas recourses as well as the inhumane treatment they inflicted on the indigenous population. Seen from the Eskimo point of view it is not a comely picture, forced relocations onto barren beaches, hunger and starvation camps, brainwashing by over zealous Christian clerics, unemployment, the dole, drugs, alcohol, suicide, and their struggles to finally achieve governess over their territory, "Nunavut".

The book might well be a textbook for young people who have aspirations for careers in the Documentary Motion Picture field. Keeping you equipment going is only half of the battle mere survival is the other half. That is what makes this book a fascinating read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781477287699

Willem Bakhuys Roozeboom

Willem Bakhuys Roozeboom was born in Holland in 1921. At the age of 5 he immigrated, with his parents, to a homestead in central Alberta. At age of 8 he began his Movie career as the "Town Crier". At age 21, during WW2 be earned his wings as a fighter pilot and survived being shot down off the North Coast of New Guinea. Back in Canada he returned to the movies as a cameraman and by 1958 owned his own production company twice winning the top Canadian Film Award. Now, at the age of 89 he lives in White Rock B.C. Canada.

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© 2011 Willem Bakhuys Roozeboom. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 3/21/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4567-1327-0 (sc)

978-1-4772-8769-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010919552

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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TO PUSSYCAT

Testimonial

It is strange that one can know a person for thirty years and yet know little about him other than the fact that he is your neighbour. On a recent visit to Bill Roozeboom’s home he mentioned that, at 89 years of age he had, from memory written a memoir a copy of which I took home with me when I left. At home, coffee in hand I began to read and by 3:30 AM, with my coffee now ice cold, I had read the entire, fascinating 400 page manuscript.

Disadvantaged in his formal education by the Great Depression of the 1930’s and the onset WW2 he none the less was accepted into pilot training by the Royal Dutch Air Force. Of necessity in three months he learned to read, write and speak Dutch while earning his wings as a Fighter Pilot. Overseas he participated in the Pacific war and managed to survive being shot down off the coast of New Guinea.

Returning home in 1946 he spent the next seven years digging his father’s bankrupt business out of debt. Finally at the ripe old age of 34 he began his Motion Picture career as a staff cameraman. Three years later he was on his own Photographing and Producing, in the middle of winter, a half hour film in the Yukon Territory. Unbelievable are his descriptions of the hazards of filming this epic, let alone surviving at 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and in Mayo one morning, 70 below zero Fahrenheit. The resulting film won him his first Canadian Film Award.

Subsequently, in over a hundred films he has taken his audiences into mines for Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead, Zinc and Coal in Canada, the USA, the Philippines, New Guinea, and a Coober Pedy Opal mine in the outback of Australia, where the above ground temperature registered a sizzling 135 F above. He has taken his audiences into the forests of New Guinea, Indonesia, the Philippines, and the west coast of North America from Alaska to California. The Fishing Industry has seen him filming King Crab in Alaska, Salmon and Herring in British Columbia, Tuna in California, Shrimp in the Arfuro Sea and monster Crayfish on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. He has filmed Royalty, the Captains of Industry, Government Officials and as he calls the rest of us, The Doers. Fondly he reveals his love affairs with the indigenous peoples of Australia. New Guinea, the Dene Nations of Upper Canada and especially the Eskimo’s of our High Arctic.

Often told with a wry sense of humour, especially if the joke was on him, it is interspersed with 150 beautiful and graphic photographs. It is an extraordinary read and as I indicated I couldn’t put it down. It surely should be a must read for anyone aspiring to a career in the Documentary Motion Picture Industry.

Captain William Vogel, Former Mayor of the City of Surrey, British Columbia.

Contents

Testimonial

Acknowledgments

Preamble

My Background

Chapter 1 – The Awakening Entrepreneurial Talent

Chapter 2 – World War II

Chapter 3 – Back in Civies

Chapter 4 – On My Own

Chapter 5 – Frenchie Lavoie’s Wind River Trail

Chapter 6 – Take Four Giant Steps

Chapter 7 – Rogers Pass

Chapter 8 – The Prison

Chapter 9 – Free at Last.... Free at Last

Chapter 10 – The Question of Sovereignty

Chapter 11 – The American Challenge to Sovereignty

Chapter 12 – Qallunaat (Kwa Loon Aat…The White Man)

Chapter 13 – Omingmak (Oo - Ming - Maak)

Chapter 14 – Prince Andrew in the Canadian North

Chapter 15 – Self Government for Nunivut (Our Land)

Chapter 16 – I Nearly Work for the Mafia — Strike One

Chapter 17 – Strike Two

Chapter 18 – Potpourri

Acknowledgments

It would be unjust for me to take all the plaudits for the body of Motion Picture work with which I have been associated. I was most fortunate to have a very talented motion picture animator as my wife for over 63 years. Many were the spirited discussions Marguerite and I had over the artistic merits of a sequence, heated is perhaps a better word, but I knew that always, it was for the improvement of the picture. I was also most fortunate to have a staff, along with a stable of freelance technicians, who together created an esprit-de-corps that was ever evident in our productions. I thank them all.

As well my thanks and deepest appreciation goes, to all those who assisted in the successful preparation and publication of this book. I must give special thanks to Marguerite, whose patience and love I cherish and who, to sustain me, tirelessly fed and watered me throughout the long gestation period the book required. I am deeply indebted to Mrs. Pat MacNaughton who slaved tirelessly over the manuscript breaking my ramblings into proper phrases, sentences, paragraphs and chapters. Pat, and Marguerite’s effervescent encouragement was of great assistance when I became discouraged at my progress. My special thanks to Ernie Perrault, himself a successful Author, for his encouragement. My love to Marion Carras who’s beautiful cover design landed on the cutting room floor. And lastly - Thank you Steve Cowan for your beautiful map designs.

Finally I must express my deepest gratitude to….Richard….Jess and Bob....my computer.... GURUS who always answered my plaintive calls for assistance and then unfailingly, mysteriously, retrieved all I thought I had inadvertently deleted. Sincere thanks goes to Rick Leche who performed his electronic magic to make the faded 75 year old pictures look like they were taken yesterday.

Preamble

Let me be frank from the very outset! I am highly motivated, arrogant, rude, loud, brash, self-opinionated, and, at times, an insufferable pain in the neck – to boot – I am a stubborn Dutchman. I come on so strong that I leave some people with a feeling that, I don’t know what the hell I am talking about. For others I engender a palpable conviction that I state my case so bluntly that my point of view seems to be an assault on their intelligence. A further consideration is that I was born under the SIGN OF THE ROOSTER in the Chinese Zodiac:

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ROOSTERS are deep thinkers - have great ability and talent - are tenacious workers - dread failure - would rather work by themselves than with others.

In my own defence I claim that my acerbic attitude is motivated by my conviction that today’s bleeding heart attitudes have, in my lifetime, failed miserably to influence progressive or beneficial social change. I have long contended that caution and timorousness are forms of cowardliness, which, for millennia has retarded development to our social mores. Regrettably, in my view, the changes that did occur were mostly of a degenerative nature that, like a vortex, is spinning us into an immoral abyss.

Let me however qualify, that the contents of this book are truthful presentations (as I perceived them) of facts, locations and circumstance’s, in which I daily found myself. In my documentary films I had two philosophies that were evident in all my productions, be truthful and keep it simple. If you care to challenge my opinions I am open to debate, if you prove inconsistencies in them I will amend them and if you confirm me wrong I will abandon them. At times I might get political, or rail against social injustice, or cry about, what I have seen humankind do to the environment, to each other and to the other species in our world. I might even get moralistic, but all that I say I feel with deep conviction. The stories are real and as near as my memory will allow, are not embellished, they are exactly as I saw the events parade through my viewfinder.

My Background

This book is not intended to be an accurate history of the early Motion Picture Industry in Western Canada, but rather, it is the story of Marguerite and my pioneering, 50 year careers in it. The following notes will help you understand why we feel it might be of interest to you to read about a 90 year old retired Cinematographer, Director and Documentary Motion Picture Producer. In all I estimate that I have traveled well over three million miles. Quite frankly I’m tired of hotels, motels; inns and an assortment of other accommodation that at times defy depiction. Above all I hope I never have to eat in a restaurant again, not that I have anything against them but I know by heart, from just the smell and atmosphere of the place, what will be on the menu and even what the chef’s special will be. And don’t say that they can’t do anything to boiled eggs - I’ve had a couple of ....very old....ones in my day. I’m sure that every commercial traveler will agree with me that there is nothing lonelier than the weekend in some strange location. Everyone you are working with during the week has gone home to the family .....Alone...., you can only walk so far, drink so many cups of coffee and see so many old movies. After 50 years and well into my third go around with John Wayne movies I felt that it was time to retire. Above all I have seen enough naked Tits, from Playboy centerfolds, on bunkhouse walls, to encourage me to seek other forms of distraction.

Enjoying my retirement, at home, means that I now have time to share some of my experiences with you. Some are funny, some are sad, some are hair- raising but, be assured, they are all true. I sincerely hope that none of these anecdotes seems boastful, for that is not my intent. I have two very profound reasons for writing about what I observed and learned;

To satisfy my legion of friends and former customers, who have heard these stories first hand, who have debated my theories, have disputed my philosophies, and have laughed at my humorous predicaments. Many then pleaded with me to put them all together in a book. An excerpt from Goethe’s Faust defines the second:

HE ALONE IS WORTHY OF LIFE AND FREEDOM,

WHO EACH DAY DOES BATTLE FOR THEM ANEW!

I am a product of the....Great Depression....the hungry thirties, which during my boyhood, shaped what I am and taught me all that is instilled in my persona. I know I was born in Holland in 1921 and that is all I do know about it. My father came to Canada at the invitation of the Canadian Pacific Railway

COME TO CANADA AND WE WILL GIVE YOU A SECTION OF LAND,

A COUPLE OF HORSES, COWS, PIGS AND A BAG OF SEED .... FREE

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Typical Prairie homestead in central Alberta.

The CPR was not being overly generous; they were giving away land that they obtained for nothing. The Canadian government had given them every other square mile of land (a section – 640 acres) along any rail line that they built. These lines often penetrated deeply into marginally fertile areas and in some cases even into the so-called bad-lands. At the time they were built, these lines often made no economic sense but in the long view, taken by the CPR, they would become profitable. To attract these Homesteaders they unleashed a massive advertising campaign all over land scarce Europe. What better than to recruit a bunch of dumb foreigners, (non-eligible voters) Dutch Boers, German farmers, French peasants or ignorant Slavs. As foreigners we were all disenfranchised therefore, to administer us, they brought a gaggle of English remittance men to run the country. My father, although knowing nothing about farming, had gained title to one of these homesteads.

Being young, restless and with a growing family, my father came in 1923 and we, my mother, older sister, younger brother and I followed, in 1925, on the CPR steamer Montcalm from Liverpool, England, to Montreal. Ten days aboard ship and then five days and six nights on the train (sitting up, there were no sleeping berths for peasants) brought us to Calgary. My father was at the station to meet us with a team of horses and a wagon in which we, for five, bone - jarring days, crawled on steel rimmed wheels over the rutted Edmonton Trail to our square mile in central Alberta. Here on the banks of the Battle River awaited the 400 square foot cabin that was to be our home for the next five years. This 400 square foot building had a 2x4 frame with cedar siding on the outside and lath and plaster on the inside – there was absolutely no insulation to keep out the – minus 50 degree winters.

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Our homestead home, as it looks today – roof partially caved in

By 1929 things were a little easier but, when the stock market crash set off the great depression, dad sold wheat at ten cents a bushel for #1. Unfortunately nothing graded #1 everything was graded #3, at five cents a bushel. For my parents to raise a family at that time must have been very trying as, most often times, we did not have money to buy the basic necessities of coffee, tea, sugar and salt, we just simply did without. Then too the avalanche of modern inventions had not, as yet, begun to deliver the amenities that we today consider basic essentials to our standard of living.

I am sure that you readers who were born as baby boomers or are part of the Internet Society this short description (just a few) of the amenities that did not exist in this rural environment will seem incredible. Eighty five years ago (1925) we had no phones, no electricity therefore no computers, computer games, power tools, kitchen stoves, freezers, electric washers and dryers, dishwashers, microwaves, automatic electric or gas heat, no electric lights, toasters fry pans and the like. No running water, hot water heater, showers or bathtubs, no indoor toilets, not even rolls of toilet paper; the quartered, non glossy, pages of the T Eaton catalogue performed the service in the drafty, unheated, two hole-r outhouse. No cars, motorbikes, planes, campers, trailers and fifth wheelers, just a horse and buggy.

We kids were not bussed to school - we daily rode five miles to and from school on horseback (in winter schools were closed only when the temperature was below - 40 F.) On one occasion I left the school at 5PM in a snow storm that after dark at 6PM became a blizzard – I had no idea where I was but my faithful horse, appropriately named Maud, brought me to the door of our barn. No radios, (I built our areas first radio, a crystal set) no television, movies, videos and video games. No plastic toys of any kind. No swimming pools, sports complexes, ski hills with rope tows or ski lifts, no organised little leagues, hockey leagues. No bowling alleys, tennis courts, playgrounds with equipment, or golf courses.

To be truthful, in an odd way we were luckier than people who lived in the towns and cities where most young people were the unemployed that inhabited the HOBO COMMUNITIES that sprang up along the railway tracks. These people hitch hiked from town to town in the railway’s empty freight cars in search of nonexistent work or in most cases, simply a good meal. In my memory it seems that we had one or more of these, now faceless people, at our table nightly. We, as I said, were fortunate for we grew most of the necessities of life on the farm. We preserved large quantities of vegetables from our one acre garden as well as wild fruits and berries. Hunger for us was not a part of our lives, but daybreak to sunset hard labour was. CHORES were a part of our daily lives and taught us one important lesson, to survive we all, regardless of age, had to work".

To many of you this must seem like a terrible place for a child to grow up. Yet for me....Huck Finn....a healthy, inquisitive boy with a boundless amount of energy, running barefoot in summer, footloose in winter, experiencing unlimited freedom to indulge every fantasy of boyhood, it was a wonderful place to grow up. By age twelve, thanks to a neighbour’s (Mr.Tripanier) fantastic library, I had travelled to the centre of the earth, flown to the moon and sailed twenty thousand leagues under the sea with Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo, and had actualised a thousand excursions in the H.G. Wells Time Machine. By age fifteen I had devoured Charles Darwin and Aldus Huxley who together, opened my eyes to the world and aroused in me a voracious appetite for knowledge, discovery and adventure. While, at the time, they were only fantasies, all these together coalesced into the blueprint that I would follow for the rest of my life. From Darwin I learned that to truly understand one’s surroundings one should simultaneously attune all one’s senses, to observe, hear and feel, the landscape and all the living creatures with whom we share this planet. All this was learned in my secret hideout, the hayloft of the barn. My father feared heights and never ventured there – further in winter, it was the warmest building on the farm. Darwin said:

A man who dares to waste an hour of his time has not discovered the value of life

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Banff Alberta - Camera - 16mm Arriflex

On assignment for the Calgary Olympic Development Association.

CHAPTER ONE

The Awakening Entrepreneurial Talent

In the year 1930 my father and mother had moved from the homestead and now owned the local dairy in the town of Castor, Alberta, (pop. 450) and we, as most people in rural Canadian towns in the hungry thirties, barely kept from going on relief as welfare was known in those days. Castor was on a rail line that connected a number of three elevator towns.

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Castor (1995) still a four elevator town

This line, like many others in rural North America, spawned the era of the traveling picture showmen the circuit picture showmen. An exhibitor took a print of a current film on the train to the first town along the line, stopping on Monday night to screen the film, sometimes in a barn, a schoolroom or auditorium. The next day he would catch the same train to the next town down the line. He showed the film in six towns from Monday to Saturday and returned to his starting point on the Sunday train to start the run again with a new film on Monday. Our parents were already beginning to censor what we were seeing and banned us from horror films, war films and murder mysteries. To assist our parents with this censorship the exhibitor had the weekly Advance print a I hope I get these films in this order list. But the order always got mixed up when another exhibitor would keep a really good film for a second week thereby knocking the list out of kilter. So, when in doubt, our parents began keeping us at home. All my friends were however seeing a lot of shows and I felt terribly left out, as my dad simply could not afford 10 cents for my admission. I never had an allowance for the chores I performed; food on the table was payment in full. So if I were ever to see a show, it would have to be through some entrepreneurial scheme. Finally I recognized an opportunity, a need, and set out to create my own job.

With show night in Castor being Thursdays, I arranged and got permission to borrow the school’s hand bell after classes were out at 5 P.M. With this secured, I ran the half -mile to the train station to meet the showman, coming in on the 5:15. There I made my pitch. He thought my idea a good one, so we’d give it a try; if successful, I would have a weekly job. That, 78 years ago, culminated in my being hired for my first job in the Motion Picture Industry - the pay - One Free Admission - 10 cents a week. The showman gave me to-night’s film title and the names of its stars. I then did a circuit of every street in town alternately ringing the bell as loud as I could and yelling at the top of my lungs:

See the show to-night, Fay Wray and King Kong, the magnificent ape, show time seven o’clock.

I ended the first circuit at home, choked down supper and then reversed the tour ending at the theatre just before seven o’clock. Two hours of - belling and yelling - like the town crier, and I had earned my first ten cents. By 1930 horses were, fast fading from most rural towns leaving several livery stables vacant, in Castor one of these abandoned stables had been converted into our local theatre. A tightly stretched bed sheet substituted for a screen. I was told to sit in the front row, almost directly under the screen - good seats further back were for paying customers.

The original King Kong was my first film. This huge ape towering over me nearly scared me to death. On the way home something under the planks of the wooden sidewalk scurried away and I swear that I jumped ten feet as showers of goose pimples cascaded over me. Five minutes later I lay, gasping for breath, safely in bed. During the next year I saw more films than all my friends put together.

Soon I was a seasoned viewer and all the stars of the era became my friends and heroes: Tom Mix, Tex Ritter, Ken Mainard, Rin Tin Tin, Barrymore, Chaney, Valentino, Jolsen, Harlow, Pickford, Bara and all the others paraded over that bed sheet. I knew then that I wanted to be one of them. But for now I had to be content with being the Town Crier. My natural curiosity soon graduated me from the front row to the projection booth where, more often than not, I ran the show while my boss was having the night off in the local beer parlour. And that was in the days of - Nitrate Film.

For those of you who do not know what that means the easiest way for me to explain it is to tell you that the N in TNT stands for Nitrate (as in Nitro Glycerine) a highly explosive substance which was, at the time, the base of most film materials. It was several years before inactive man-made celluloid, or safety base films, were introduced. In my innocence I was running these shows not knowing that one electrical spark, or simply an overheated projector, could instantly blow the whole theatre apart. It was not until several years, and a few explosions, fortunately elsewhere, that an elaborate projection booth safety system was devised to protect both the projectionist and the viewing public. I now dreamt of being in the movies but I also began dreaming of flying like the aces of my all time favourite film, that powerful Howard Hughes WW1 classic Hell’s Angels. If I can’t make it in the movies, I will be a fighter pilot…..ah, such wonderful dreams.

Every year, usually in the fall one or more of the barnstormers would fly into Castor and give people rides. Five-dollar’s bought you a ten-minute circle around the town. I was already airplane nuts and had a squadron of WW1 model planes hanging from the rafters of my unfinished attic bedroom. All were powered by elastic bands; however, all were air-worthy, S.E.5’s, Camels, Spads, Fokker Triplanes and Jennies. I knew what a joystick was for, what a rudder and a stabilizer did, I understood lift, drag and dihedral, but I had yet to fly. The next time a barnstormer came to town I resolved to remedy that but having no money made that a formidable predicament.

One school day in early September we were playing at recess when a Jennie flew over, circled once, and landed in a cow pasture about half a mile from our school. That was the end of classes for me that day. I was over the fence and, in what was probably world record time for the half mile, was at the edge of the field just as the pilot was climbing down. As I was the only other person there he called me over and explained that he had to go to town for something, he’d be an hour. Would I stand guard and make sure that nobody touched the plane?

Would I?....with my life....I would be Horatio at the bridge.

But could I get a free ride?

O.K. kid when I get back,...I’ll see you in an hour.

I smelled the burned oil from the still hot motor, the odour of dope that stretched the fabric over the wooden wing ribs. I touched and rubbed, with reverence, that incredible real airplane. Within the shortest hour that I have ever lived the pilot returned and proceeded to remove the cowling and do some repairs to the motor (I think he changed the plugs). He then said he would take her up for a test flight before giving me my ride. He did not have to tell me that regulations required that, after repairs, all airplanes had to be test flown before they were certified air-worthy for passenger flights. With his repairs completed he started the motor, revved it a couple of times and, with a wave to me, taxied to the end of the field. At full throttle he rose majestically into the air, and, as he gained altitude, turned to the west and slowly disappeared into the wild blue yonder.

Some entrepreneur I was! The punishment I knew I was going to receive, for playing hooky, would have been worth it if I’d had my ride:

LIVE AND LEARN.

I was now more determined than ever that, the next time a plane came to town, I would be able to buy myself a ride, I already had a plan....I went into my mother and father’s bedroom and found my dad’s .22 calibre rifle, disassembled it, stuffed the barrel and stock into my pant legs, pocketed the smaller pieces and, stiff legged smuggled them to my sanctuary in the barn.

Gophers were my first targets as they were approachable to a distance of twenty feet and there were a great number of them. Farmers calculated that, Gophers, a rat like scourge, could cost a farmer a dollar an acre per year, in lost grain yield. There was, at the time, a two and a half cent bounty on these pests, payable upon delivery of a twisted off tail. Twenty-two-calibre ammunition (shorts) cost twenty-five cents for a box of fifty, leaving a profit of two cents per gopher (provided you had no misses). That summer I shot over two thousand of these rodents but more importantly I could now pick off gopher heads from a distance of fifty yards with a ninety eight percent kill ratio. The amount of effort to earn only thirty-three dollars net profit seemed like a great waste of time. A new opportunity arrived with the coming of winter when the fur bearing animals donned their winter coats.

Shubert’s Fur Company in Edmonton, Alberta was advertising that they wanted well cured Bush Rabbit, Jackrabbit, Weasel, Muskrat and Coyotes pelts. Shubert’s were paying 10 cents for a Bush Rabbit, 20 cents for a Jack, one dollar for a Weasel, Muskrat or Skunk, and five dollars for a Coyote skin. By mid December, from Rabbits alone, I had added $31.60 to my gopher money. I also had two full boxes of shells (.22 calibre longs at 50 cents a box of fifty) hidden in the barn. I hoped that this more powerful ammunition would get me a Coyote or two.

Earlier, in the spring, I had seen a female Coyote and her pups in a rocky coulee just a few miles north of town. I reasoned that she and her now grown family, were probably still in the valley, as there was ample food for them with the seemingly undiminished population of gophers and bush rabbits that also lived in the valley. I tried several times to get the cagey Coyotes in range of my small rifle but could not get near enough for a fatal shot, I needed a bigger, longer range, more powerful rifle. My Dad’s 30:30 Saddle-rifle - the Winchester lever action Model # 97 would do just fine and several days later I had it smuggled out of the house, reassembled, and in the barn.

On the first day of the Christmas holidays I entered the valley with loaded 30:30 in hand to try my luck. By late in the afternoon I knew that the Coyote family had abandoned the den and were now roaming the entire valley. I had seen lots of tracks but no Coyotes. Finally I gave in; it was time to go home, as it would soon be dark. Along the way I was already planning my next hunt with a skinned rabbit carcass or two as bait. If I were to tie a dead rabbit, to a tree, in the same location every evening for a week or two, maybe they would get used to feeding there, and, just maybe, I could ambush them.

Day dreaming, as I came around the base of a large rock outcrop at the crest of the valley ridge, I almost collided with the local Northwest Mounted Policeman, flat hat, breeches, with a yellow stripe down the side, high leather boots, a blazing red tunic, and a holstered pistol. Here I was, caught red handed, under age, without a permit, and carrying a stolen....loaded rifle. (With the safety on).....

I WAS IN DEEP TROUBLE......!

My father was a stern disciplinarian, although at times I thought him a tyrant. I was not, however, prepared for the look on his face as I marched in front of Constable Staley into our back yard. I was immediately sent to my room to be dealt with later, and dealt with I was. I was sure that it was the end of my hunting career, Orion had been shot down. A week later the Mountie was again at our back door asking for me. Hesitantly my mother called me from my room with the words, The...POLICE...are here to see you....AGAIN.

Constable Staley took me out to the back yard just as my father hove to from the direction of the barn to see what I had done now. He assured my father that I had done nothing wrong but he did have a proposition for me. A Mountie was not well paid in those days, therefore most had some sideline to augment his incomes, and ours bred and raised Mink for the fur trade. Most people have heard a great deal about the Mink’s prodigious sex life but know nothing about their voracious appetites. He was keeping three hundred mink and they consume a lot of meat, cheap meat whenever possible.

His proposition was that he would pay me 10 cents for a Bush Rabbit carcass and 20 cents for a Jack Rabbit, (during the summer he would pay me 50 cents a dozen for gophers) providing, of course, that I could pass a shooting test. I assured him that I could hit anything I shot at, for which my dad gave a swift kick in the rear for being cocky. My dad had played soccer on the University team in Holland and had one of the most accurate feet I have ever known. I assure you that he could actually reach around a doorframe, after my fleeing rear end and, unerringly, connect. Dad told me to get the now locked up .22 rifle and we would see just how good I was.

When I returned, the Constable was standing next to a small poplar tree about 25 yards away. (Ridiculously close) He wedged a dime into the crook between a branch and the trunk and came back to where my dad and I were standing, and then said:

Okay kid....let’s see you hit the dime.

I pulled the bolt back, inserted a shell into the single shot chamber, slid the bolt forward and down, then seemingly in one motion, brought the rifle to my shoulder, raised the muzzle and fired, sending the dime hurtling into space. (After all, that’s the way Tex Ritter did it). I must confess I had practiced that a lot. I thought it would come in handy when I got to Hollywood. John Wayne you’re lucky I was never discovered.

Was that luck or can you do it again? he asked.

If you have the money to waste, I’ll hit it. was my reply.

After I recovered from yet another well placed foot to my posterior, the deal was consummated. I was now, unofficially of course, with my father’s reluctant consent, a professional hunter. I was warned that if I killed a farmer’s cow or horse I would spend the rest of my life in jail. In the bargain I was allowed to keep the pelts for my fur trade as he was only interested in the meat. While that would double my return for each carcass, the most immediate benefit was that I could now hunt nearer to home which, before, had always been done well out of my father’s earshot.

From 1931 to 1935 I held down both, jobs - hunter and town crier. However, the hunting was becoming