Episode 34 : Letters by Mule Post : an interview with Anna Bengtson [transcript]

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:29:16 Karen Houppert or Debbie Lee: Welcome to the Subway Bitterroot Wilderness History Project, which is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The University of Idaho, and Washington State University. Part of the project’s mission is to collect, preserve, and make public oral histories documenting the history and people of the subway. Bitterroot wilderness. For more information, please visit our website at SPW lib argue Idaho redo.

00:00:29:19 - 00:00:55:18 Karen Houppert or Debbie Lee: And then I think people, I think people get so much out of being in a wilderness setting once you take away cars and money and telephones. People are different and they are different to each other, I think. And, and, and then they draw on things in themselves that maybe are a little rusty from our crazy life out here now.

00:00:55:20 - 00:01:25:23 Karen Houppert or Debbie Lee: I think the ways that people get along when they’re isolated in a place like that, that they place that they want to be, are really it’s a wonderful thing.

00:01:25:26 - 00:01:51:12 Karen Houppert or Debbie Lee: Thank you for joining us for the 34th episode of the South Bitterroot Wilderness History Project. In this episode, titled Letters by Mule Post, Anna Bankston, the Wilderness Ranger at Moose Creek, talks about the sense of history that she feels working deep in the heart of the South. Bitterroot. Anna grew up in northwestern Montana and remembers visiting Glacier National Park with her family after obtaining a forestry degree.

00:01:51:13 - 00:02:22:05 Karen Houppert or Debbie Lee: She applied to work on fire crews in Montana and Idaho. Finally ending up at Jumbo Mountain Lookout for five seasons as a wilderness ranger at Moose Creek. Anna does on the ground wilderness management, including cleaning up campsites and returning fire rings to a naturalized state. As well as teaching leave no Trace principles to wilderness users. In this excerpt, she describes living deep in the backcountry for months at a time, and reasons for using historic methods of transportation in the wilderness.

00:02:22:07 - 00:02:27:20 Karen Houppert or Debbie Lee: So tell me how how long are you back here, and how do you get mail?

00:02:27:22 - 00:02:50:14 Anna Bengtson: it depends for me, I, I sometimes stay back for 1 to 2 months at a time and, it, you know, it just kind of depends on what’s going on. It’s a little more. It’s becoming a little more office stuff that needs to be done. but ideally, I just stay back here for a lot of the summer and just go out as needed.

00:02:50:20 - 00:03:10:27 Anna Bengtson: And, we get all of our food and mail by pack string. we’ve got a packer that comes in every two weeks. Pete is Peter McCarty, and he comes from Fen. Ranger station is his base. And then it’s the end of the road is another 15 miles there.

00:03:10:29 - 00:03:12:27 Karen Houppert or Debbie Lee: So what’s a pack string?

00:03:12:29 - 00:03:37:03 Anna Bengtson: It is his. He rides a horse, and then he. He pulls behind him about, 8 or 9 mules. It depends. 7 to 9 mules. depending on how much stuff is coming in. And those are all packed with boxes. You know, he manages up loads and, a mule can carry about a fifth of its weight.

00:03:37:03 - 00:04:05:10 Anna Bengtson: So mules are, you know, around 8000 3,000 pounds so they can carry quite a bit of weight in and we try to do it traditionally. You know, we do have occasional administrative flights that come into since we have an airstrip here. But in the past the there was a time when they did a lot more, administrative flights and then they reevaluated that, just both safety wise.

00:04:05:12 - 00:04:10:04 Anna Bengtson: we did have a couple of big plane crashes with that killed four service personnel.

00:04:10:04 - 00:04:13:10 Karen Houppert or Debbie Lee: And then what’s administrative? What is that?

00:04:13:12 - 00:04:34:08 Anna Bengtson: just for service flights, you know, if you know, and I, I always either hike in or ride a horse. But in the past, maybe I would have just gone to the airport in Greenville and flown in. You know, that would be an option if we if we did do more administrative flights.

00:04:34:11 - 00:04:48:22 Karen Houppert or Debbie Lee: And what if you had to name kind of like the single most thing that attracted you to like being up here in the wilderness? What would you say? like, what draws you most?

00:04:48:24 - 00:05:34:04 Anna Bengtson: Well, it’s depends, because, you know, the word that comes to my mind is freedom. But, I mean, when you’re doing this for a job, you don’t always have freedom. But I think that for, like, wilderness, I guess solitude and freedom are things that I really value about, well, being out in the wilderness. And, and with a job like this, you don’t get that as much, but it’s still just, I guess, being being in the natural world and kind of being able to be here for numerous seasons and kind of learn a place and, you know, get to know which wildflowers pop up in the spring and where you where to find the real mushrooms.

00:05:34:04 - 00:05:59:19 Anna Bengtson: And, and just kind of first getting to know the natural beauty of a place. And then with Moose Creek, it’s getting to learn, I think a lot of the history I really enjoyed that about, being in this place is just kind of merging that past with with the present and trying to keep moose keep going the same way it was.

00:05:59:25 - 00:06:22:26 Anna Bengtson: You know, it’s been for decades. And it’s, you know, obviously things are going to change, but but I, I really value that, like having a backcountry station. And that was the same with the Bob Marshall two. Just using those backcountry stations as work centers. And the same way that they have always been. And I, I feel like they’re really valuable to have the backcountry.

00:06:22:27 - 00:06:41:14 Anna Bengtson: I know it’s, you know, it’s contrary to wilderness in a way. And as well as the airstrip. But, I think we we can do a lot more for the wilderness and managing the wilderness, having those stations back here.

00:06:41:17 - 00:06:59:29 Karen Houppert or Debbie Lee: And is there is there something I haven’t asked you that you think is important to know, or you feel like when people when ask you about like, oh, wow, your work for the forestry service and they usually get the wrong idea. Like what? You know, or do people have a reaction when you say that?

00:07:00:04 - 00:07:20:22 Anna Bengtson: I think a lot of people just don’t understand the concept of being stationed out this far, you know? And it’s I think this is different with the airstrip because you can get in here in 30 minutes and a plane. But for most of the people that come in, or a lot of the people in in the Forest Service people, it takes a long time to come in.

00:07:20:22 - 00:07:43:06 Anna Bengtson: And I think, you know, we get volunteer hosts that come in for a month, a month at a time, and I try to recruit hosts and even, you know, some of them, they just don’t quite get that concept of there’s no road here. You know, it’s takes a long time to get in here. And, and it does take a lot of effort to supply the station.

00:07:43:06 - 00:08:04:10 Anna Bengtson: And and just to, you know, there’s people that live here for their whole summer, like the MK crew, they stay back here a lot of the summer, and and we don’t have we have a satellite phone for emergencies, but we don’t have phone communication. We only have letter communication. And then the two way radios, for the most part.

00:08:04:10 - 00:08:22:10 Anna Bengtson: And I think, you know, we don’t have internet, a lot of people, whereas at the subway lives, they do have internet. So it’s a little different. But but I think it’s just, you know, Mark goes, you want to check your internet and and like Karen, we shouldn’t. But as soon as we got in there, how is it?

00:08:22:13 - 00:08:44:21 Anna Bengtson: Yeah. Yeah. No. And it’s hard and it’s it’d be the same way if, if we ever had internet here, you know, it’s just one of those things that can. It’s a distraction. That’s hard not to to do it, but but yeah, I think that’s probably what people most understand about my job is like how far in it really is.

00:08:44:23 - 00:08:49:03 Anna Bengtson: And, and you were asked the original question was the mail and I never.

00:08:49:06 - 00:08:54:02 Karen Houppert or Debbie Lee: Oh, right. Right there in the mail is explaining the mail. Yeah.

00:08:54:04 - 00:09:21:28 Anna Bengtson: The mail gets delivered to the post office in Koski, Idaho, which is about 20 or 25 miles downriver from Fenn Ranger Station, our main ranger station. And so the Postal service drives it up to Fenn, drops it off there, and then Pete, he picks it up. He usually drives up to the end of the road, the trailhead on the night before.

00:09:21:28 - 00:09:32:21 Anna Bengtson: He’s going to come in here, so he’ll pick it up in the office at Fenn, drive it up to the trailhead, pack it up with all the other supplies coming in, and then he comes in in a day and so he delivers it.

00:09:32:23 - 00:09:34:11 Karen Houppert or Debbie Lee: With the mules by a mule.

00:09:34:13 - 00:10:00:15 Anna Bengtson: Yeah. And it it is them. it’s a fun day when he comes in because everyone gets excited both about fresh food and mail, you know. And I think that is that’s the main connection with the outside world for people that are working back here. And, it’s really exciting to get a care package or a letter from somebody that a friend who somebody you love.

00:10:00:18 - 00:10:03:18 Karen Houppert or Debbie Lee: And I can imagine when they forget to bring the mail then.

00:10:03:18 - 00:10:26:21 Anna Bengtson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You kind of like, look never, you know, you know, how to say anything at first. Like, it’s got to be here. And then. Pete, did you get the mail? Oh, I forgot, I forgot the mail. That’s okay. I’ll come in in a couple more weeks.

00:10:26:23 - 00:10:53:23 Karen Houppert or Debbie Lee: Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness History Project, which has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The University of Idaho, and Washington State University. The project coordinator is Debbie Lee, recorded and produced by Aaron Jepson.