Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1914-11-27
STRENUOUS WORK
!. OF The AMERICAN
FOREST RANGERS
A Big Force Gives Up
Home Luxuries and
Faces Discomforts Of
a Winter in Woods to
Conserve Forests for
Future Generations.

Washington, Nov. 26.-Out in the
suow-piled reaches of 100 Federal For
est Reserves, a small army of Forest
Rangers, Uncle Sans most picturesque
employees are burning brush, making
trail, and building bridges, in order
that timber for the multifarious uses
of posterity may not perish from the
face of the earth.
Mounted on snow-shoes or skis, and
clothed in corduroys and mackinaw,
the Forest Ranger has settled down to
his winters work, far back in the
wooded hills, miles from human COM
partnership, with no line of communi-
cation but the attenuated strand of
telephone wire, which he himself has
strung behind him. For the Forest
Ranger is a kind of "hibernating'
animal that works while he hibernates,
| with the last danger of destructive
| forest fires gone with the arrival of
| the heavy SHOWS, he deserts his look
out station, and devotes his attention
| to the work of the winter, the clean
| ing up of his range, and the mainten-
ance of the trails he has wrought
through the forest.
The first SHOWS start the Ranger
out to burn the brush piles left by
the logging crews that cut over sale
areas, and free-use timber on his
range. The brush is left in piles until
a wet blanket of snow insures against
the starting of forest fires from the
blazing refuse. Then it is burned with
the snow on hand as natures own fire
extinguisher
The ranger furnishes up his snow
shoes or skis, and patches up his hand
or dog sled. A way over on the other
side of his range he knows there is
bridge that spans a mountain torrent,
which needs considerable strengthen
ing to stand the weight which the break
up of the winters ice, and the spring
freshets will put upon it. So he loads
a quarter of a ton of bridge iron on
his sled, bitches up his dogs, should
ers a provision pack and closes up the
log cabin that he calls headquarters.
He may have to negotiate a snow
choked pass, seven or eight thousand
feet in altitude, where the wet heavy
snow clogs his snow shoes, and where
he may have to make three or four
trips to haul his pack over the crest.
When he arrives at his destination
he may find his bridge buried under
a ten foot drift of heavy snow which
he will spend a day penetrating.
Through delays and heavy travelling,
he may find his supplies giving out,
and by the time he has fought his
way through a snow storm back to
headquarters he may have been lunch
ing for days on frozen raw bacon, and
sleeping in sodden blankets under a
sheltering tree.
Throughout the long winter the
Ranger is kept busy with just such
jobs as these. Ten feet of snow may
come down from the mountains and
bury his cabin, and he must dig him.
self out and take the trail And he
must keep everlastingly at it until the
spring break up sends him scurrying
to the high points to watch for the
curl of smoke that foretells the coming
of the forest fire.
Development of the winter work on
the ranges has removed the Forest
Ranger from the patronage classl-.
fication in government jobs. Formerly
congressman were inclined to look on
the Forest Ranger place as desirable
position for some constituent looking
for light outdoor work" That time
has passed however, for the forest
ranger must submit medical certificate
showing that he is able-bodied before
he is appointed. AS the Forest Ser
vice puts it: