Stories by Doug H.

The Job Description
by Doug Hagan

Note to file: Sioux Lookout, Ontario, January 5th, 1965: I am about to conduct my first interview for Ontario Government contract 59X – 66 – Position Audits. The subject is one Herman Boyko, whose title is, “Wildlife Management Officer, Classification CO4.” The location is the Fish and Wildlife Office which occupies the second floor over the home and place of business of the town’s only jeweler.

“Mr. Boyko…”

“Might as well call me, ‘Herman.’”

“Herman,” I continued, “As you know, my company is conducting position audits within the Department of Lands and Forests throughout the province. It is perceived that written job descriptions are mostly out-of-date or poorly done. They are not particularly useful when it comes to making decisions on staff deployment and allocation. As a result, my company has been contracted to analyze actual key duties being performed by various positions and we will provide the government with descriptors which will assist in rationalizing the current organization. Do you understand?”

“No,” said Herman. “But I rarely do understand what contractors do. Most of the time they ask us what we already know so they can write a report about what is already obvious. Or, they screw it up completely.”

I looked up from my notepad, expecting to detect malice. Herman was grinning.

“Ah…well..yes. I see where you might think that,” I muttered. I was not about to defend God knows whoever had come before me.

“So, the outfit is thinking about moving us around, are they?” Herman asked.

“Deployment might be an outcome,” I responded. “It is, however, not a certainty,”

“Because most of us are quite settled here,” Herman said.

This came as a surprise to me. I had just spent three days in Sioux Lookout in January. This was the first time in my life I had found myself north of Richmond Hill. There was endless, drifting, fine snow in a depressing darkness that gave way a mid-day, gray gloom. Only the two restaurants and the pool hall bothered to light their signs. None of the buildings exceeded two stories. I missed Toronto. Deprived of light, I was depressed beyond mere words. I believed that no human should live like this.

“Shit. I been all over the place and I thought I was finally going to settle down,” Herman continued.

“Have you ever spent time in southern Ontario?” I asked.

“Oh yah,” said Herman. “I hated it down east. Spent most of my time in a car, for God’s sake. Can you imagine? A Conservation Officer in a car? But then, I was born and raised in the Inter-Lakes of Manitoba, eh.”

“Well,” I said, “moving is not a foregone conclusion. I would assume the present organization has some rationality, if only through evolution.”

“Uh, I guess,” said Herman. “It has taken us a good while to get to where we are at, and at times we still need more people here than we got. Do you know how big this district is?”

“I was going to get to that,” I said. “But let me ask you a set of questions in an order my company likes to ask them. It will keep me on track.”

“Sure,” said Herman.

The matter of how big a district was, was nowhere in my line of questions. The company had assumed that all organizational units were much the same. I had just spotted a map behind Herman which outlined Lands and Forests districts in the Province of Ontario. They were anything but equal in size. Sioux Lookout District was enormous.

“Er, how big is this district?” I asked.

“One-hundred and ten thousand square miles,” Herman said. “But, that isn’t the whole picture.” Because we have pilots and year-round aircraft, we service part of the next two districts to the east. We also have trappers we have to maintain contact with living in Shamattawa, Manitoba. We go from below the Trans-Canada Highway to the Hudson’s Bay coast,” said Herman. “We provide services to people in Fort Severn and Winisk on the coast, Fort Hope and Lansdowne House over here in the east, then Kasabonika and Big Trout and Cat Lake here in the middle, and Pikangikum, Sandy Lake and Shamattawa on the west side. I’m talking mostly about trapping, goose camps, and commercial fishing, and stuff like that. We are able to drive to places only in the southern tenth of the district.”

The area he was outlining on the map was bigger than most countries. It had more lakes than land. With some hesitation, I returned to the order of questions set out by the company.

“Tell me Herman, what does a Wildlife Management Officer do?”

“Um, I haven’t seen my job spec for some time. I don’t know if it is up-to-date.”

“That is what this exercise is all about,” I said. “Just tell me in your own words what you do, say in a typical year.”

“We keep track of the fur harvest by species and in late spring make recommendations on trapping regulations for the next year. We can do this because every piece of fur that is sold is recorded as to where it came from and where it goes. In late summer, we visit all the sealing officers in all those communities I just told you about. They place seals on the pelts before they are sold, mostly to the Hudson’s Bay Company or the North Bay fur auction. There are some other dealers but not many any more. I may also visit each of the communities again in the winter to take care of any problems, all of it depending on the availability of aircraft and flying weather.”

“In between times, I deal with the Feds in developing resource programs with the native communities, like the goose hunting camps on the coast at Winisk and Fort Severn. I may give a hand to the Fisheries Management Officers in test netting some lakes, because I know the people in the communities, or I help the biologists in their projects like the moose and caribou aerial surveys. Every few years I help the Research people with polar bear surveys.”

“There are two Wildlife Management Officers here, according to the organization chart,” I observed. “Where is the other one?”

“He is down in Thunder Bay, drying out again,” said Herman.

“Seems like a lot to do for one person,” I said.

“With two biologists, our supervisor and two fisheries management officers, we can make do for a while,” said Herman. “But, it is getting a bit much. The other guy has been essentially gone from the job for four years. You send him on a polar bear survey and he still manages to get absolutely pissed and stay that way for a week in a place like Fort Severn.”

“I thought someone who manages wildlife would have more to do with wildlife. Like, catching them and moving them around, and stuff like that,” I said.

“A few years ago we had a lot of that when we transplanted beaver back into the western part of the district,” said Herman. “But, we get extra people from Head Office and other districts if stuff like that happens.”

“Why did the beaver leave?” I asked. I know this was off-track, but I was beginning to find Herman’s wanderings interesting.

“They didn’t leave. The beaver died of tularemia. So did some of the trappers, and their wives and kids.”

I was shocked. How could this pristine place contain lurking death? Herman broke the sudden silence.

“The researchers told us that tularemia was always present in beaver populations, but for some reason, a strain developed that was particularly lethal, and it followed the water courses from the western part of our district, out the Nelson and Hay Rivers, and into the ocean. Before that, rabies came at us in the opposite direction from western Arctic to the east through the Arctic fox population. It affected the carnivores except the wolves. When it got to southern Ontario, it stayed in the red fox and skunk populations.”

“So, things happen here,” I said.

“Oh ya,” said Herman. “Never a dull moment.”

“Let’s get back to your job, Herman. You are a conservation officer, so I assume that you set quotas for trappers, for example, then prosecute them if they exceed the quotas.”

“Nope,” said Herman. “I haven’t laid a charge for a wildlife offence since I left the sunny south.”

“What do you do then?” I asked.

“I set the quotas but they are for guidance in this part of the world. It is a rough estimate of what the particular terrain of the trapline can sustain. We can’t hope to survey all traplines so it is based more than anything else on information the trapper gives us. But, the trapper knows that he has the trapline only as long as he, or he and his helpers, take care of it. They have been working on this system since the late 50’s and it works pretty well now. The trappers are committed to it. Our main problems are to get them to take their quotas and to prepare their pelts properly. It is hard work under hard conditions, and it takes skill and knowledge.”

“What if they don’t perform according to targets?” I asked.

“We try to bring in education sessions when they are needed and before the trappers get out onto their lines. We try to use other trappers as instructors because trappers tend to listen better to other trappers. I also keep in contact with the sealing officers and the local chiefs who know the trappers and why they might be having trouble. Changes in fur harvest are more likely to be affected by changes in welfare programs than natural conditions.”

“Herman, it seems that a lot of your work in wildlife management is very indirect.”

“Right! You got it. Most of it is people management. But the fur program is one of the places it really works well.”

“Herman, this is such an extensive area with so few people. How do you know that poaching isn’t going on?”

“Poaching fur was a hell of a problem in the old days, just after the second World War. It was so bad that people were shooting at each other. The Conservation Officers of that day were chasing illicit fur dealers on dog teams across the Manitoba border. There was a real concern that the resource, about twenty-one different species, was going to disappear. The management program we have now makes it impossible for anyone to market or export fur without some kind of licence. All the transactions are rationalized. In the twenty-five years we have had the system, all species except wolverine and badgers have recovered and are doing well – and we never had many of those two species to start with in Ontario.

“A lot of the tough old buggers who chased poachers by dog team are now supervisors, including mine. One or two of the poachers are now management officers.

Herman continued. “For the other species, people don’t move around in this country without being noticed. If someone is taking unfair advantage with, say, moose or caribou, someone else will resent it. We find out about things. Unfortunately, it isn’t always fresh information. We gotta work constantly to improve that”

“So, Herman, what do you do in the summer?”

“I go fishin’ a lot. Oh! You mean work-wise. Well, I help the biologists and the supervisor with annual reports and work estimates. We also meet with the other districts on our mutual programs. We meet with the Feds on resource development programs. We set the native sealing officers up for the fall season. We provide input on regulation changes. We set up the native goose camps for the snow and blue goose hunt, see that repairs are made to the facilities, recruit operators, and make sure the Mounties are going to have staff on site for each hunt. We have to make sure those Mounties know a goose from a duck and most of the time, we have to provide them with copies of their own Migratory Bird Convention Act and gently instruct them in its use. Also, the research people may want to do some polar bear work, and we help them.”

By this time, I had completely lost any methodical approach to the interview.

“My God, Herman, how did you ever come into such an interesting job?”

“I asked for it,” said Herman. “Actually, it was a really unusual situation, and I was the only one who applied for it.”

“There are Wildlife Management Officers in just about every district,” I said.

“This job began in Winisk,” Herman said, pointing to the end of the Winisk River as it emptied into Hudson’s Bay. “They were shutting down the Pine Tree Line, the line of radar stations south of the Dew Line, There were a lot of military people there all of a sudden, dismantling the place, and they needed one of us on-site to make sure no one took liberties with the local fish and wildlife resources. The local Cree Chief, Jonas Goose, asked for extra protection. So, I went there for a year, me and my new wife.”

“New wife?” Herman had done it again.

“Oh yes. Mary and I had just tied the knot. Of course she was from the inter-lake region too. Hard to get bushed anywhere else when you grow up in that part of the world. We were glad to see the end of the tour and get back to Sioux Lookout. But we were sorry in a way too. Even learned enough Cree to get by on. They really missed Mary. She was a nurse. She still writes to people up there.”

I marveled at this man. First, he had the nerve to take a new wife on a year-long honeymoon to the Hudson’s Bay coast. Then, they were both glad to get back to civilization, which they considered this town to be, smack in the middle of nowhere.

“I take it you are able to function without constant supervision?” Ah, I was back on track!

“Oh yes. That isn’t unusual up here.”

“But, you are in constant contact by radio if you need guidance or assistance, I take it?”

“Not really,” Herman said. “The best radio we have has a range of about fifty miles, early in the morning, if you can find a tree tall enough to throw the aerial wire up into. And there are no tall trees on the coast. Also, most of the communities are a hell of a lot further than fifty miles away from here. The village priest at Winisk had a radio telephone that works sometimes.”

“Herman, how can they have put a level four technician into a job that had no direct contact with supervision? It’s unheard of.”

“Not in this country. Incidentally, I was level-three at the time. I’d be happy to consider retroactive pay, though,” Herman said with his now familiar grin.

“You look like you are getting ready to go on another trip,” I said. There was a large eiderdown sleeping bag in a duffel in the corner, a couple of cardboard boxes, and a backpack lying on the floor behind his desk.”

“Yes,” said Herman. “The Chief at Fort Severn wants a meeting over the operation of the goose camp last fall. He’s got a problem with some villagers who resent the privileges that have been given to the operator of the camp, who happens to be one of them, and they picked him. Now something has gone wrong, after we spent about $20,000 to train the guy, and they want a change. On the way, I’ll stop at Big Trout Lake to check in with the chief there, and to give some orders for mukluks to Elsie MacDuff, who happens to make the best moosehide mukluks in the country. Elsie is also our sealing officer at Big Trout. I’ll make a side trip to Kasabonika to find out why some trappers are not trapping yet this winter. They get all tied up in religious issues in that village from time to time. Last time I was there the religious leader had led his group out of the village and they were living in teepees for God’s sake. He said that God had told him to do it.

“I may drop in a Fort Hope on the way back if we aren’t delayed by weather anywhere, just to see if there is any gossip of value from Father Ouimet. Before I go I’ll get the latest prices from the fur auction, just to let the sealing officers know so they can pass this information on to the trappers. Also, the pilot I am flying with wants to look at the site of a recent plane crash on Sachigo Lake. A guy we both know flew a commercial Twin Beech right into the lake during a whiteout. He walked away from it.”

“Herman,” I said, “I am going to have to restructure my interview notes and extend my stay. It’s four-thirty now. Do you have time for a beer?” ---30---