Trego's Mountain Ear

The smoke was too thick to see Brimstone when I answered the phone – the question was “How are you doing?” It took a while to realize that the news had us threatened by fire. As I’m writing this, the fire is still a dozen miles to the south. I spent an hour inside Trego school – didn’t realize how well the hepa filters were working until I stepped outside again, with the smoke burning my eyes and sending a message to go for the asthma meds.

I remember Wylie Osler’s story – how, many years ago, Forrest Schroeder, MD, our Eureka doctor, had written a prescription for him to go to Spokane, rent a motel, and spend the weekend in an air conditioned unit where he wouldn’t step outside into the smoke-filled air. Those filters (purchased for covid) have done an outstanding job. I think of the many south county neighbors, with lungs weakened by the asbestos in the vermiculite, whose lives might have been improved by those filters.

At the school I met two public information officers – one of each gender – and asked them how many Pulaski motors they would have working that night. The male answered “Pulaskis don’t have motors – then realized the question was about the men and women digging line with Pulaskis and shovels. His response was “You mean people like me?” I let the topic drop – a half-century ago the guys on the fireline used the term Pulaski motor to describe themselves . . . and the folks who didn’t work the line were camp slugs. No need to offend with my old vernacular.

Again, I think of Aldo Leopold – most will remember his Sand County Almanac, but few will remember his death – an old man, retired from the Forest Service, grabbing his tools from his vehicle to pitch in on a fire on his neighbor’s place. When the fire was out, Aldo was found dead from a heart attack. An old man – younger than I am now, dead a long year before I was born.

This morning the thermometer reads 47 degrees, and I remember nights on the line, when the dark’s cooler temperatures let us dig line more effectively. I remember Browning 74 working alongside us . . . the 74 told that it was the 74th team recruited and sent out to fight fires from the Blackfeet Reservation. Sleeping in an open field through the heat of the day was difficult. You met your neighbors. I recall a convict crew from Deer lodge. I remember seeing a clean crew walking in to relieve us – how their clean green pants and yellow shirts contrasted with the ones we had been wearing for days. That day, Gary heard that there was new underwear at the camp store, and returned with his prize – in size 42.

I read “The Summer The Sun Turned Red: Canadians Wake Up To The Reality Of Climate Change Under A Veil Of Smoke” and I looked toward Stryker Peak. I can’t see it through the smoke, but in 1960 the view of the treeless mountainside was the same as my mother remembered from her youth in 1920. The article continues “Two arson incidents in Yellowknife, four people charged, two sought.”

In the field two remaining goslings have turned to adult coloring – the remnants of 6 goslings and two adults taken by the bald eagle. There is no shortage of Canada geese – but this year has shown the fragility of life with protected predators working the neighborhood.

The afternoon is filled with flights, north to Dickey Lake, filling up, then west, turning south and flying over the house to drop water on the East Fork Fire. A technique that didn’t exist when Spielberg filmed “Always” here 30-odd years ago.

And now Monday morning – the weather reports reads “Health effects can be immediately felt by sensitive groups. Healthy individuals may experience difficulty breathing and throat irritation with prolonged exposure. Limit outdoor activity.” then “A little rain from Tropical Rainstorm Hilary” The forecast shows “Mostly cloudy with a couple of showers; smoke from area fires will lead to poor air quality”

I remember Wylie’s prescription, and think of the great job the hepa filters are doing at the school. Technology has changed a lot of aspects of life in Trego.