George Mercer joined Parks Canada when he was 18 years old.
He had always been interested in wildlife and nature, reading books like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring for fun, heading out into the bush with his family and his friends and pursuing biology in university.
And, as he passed through on his way to school in St. John’s, he had always taken notice of the the Parks Canada vehicles parked in Terra Nova National Park, specifically the wardens’ trucks.
“I’d often wonder what those guys did, and then I ended up landing a gateway attendant job and got to know the park wardens and thought that would be a neat way to put my interests to work.
“From there I ultimately landed a job with the warden service and that was basically the bulk of my career.”
After a 37-year career that took him from coast to coast—and to Jasper—Mercer retired from Parks two years ago at the age of 55. He had always planned to retire young so he could pursue his other passion: writing, but what he didn’t plan was to have his last day fall on the week of the infamous budget cuts of 2012.
“I literally retired the day before the cuts hit. I had my date set—I said for years that when I turned 55 I was going to pull the pin.
“My last couple of days were pretty brutal. A lot of people were coming out of meetings with managers in tears about what was happening and what was happening with their jobs.”
Those cuts are still felt by existing and former Parks employees today.
That’s why Mercer has been hesitant to pursue the writing project he has been thinking about for awhile—a project that asks members of the Parks family to recount the story of why they joined the agency.
“For me and a lot of people, the last couple of years were tough years and things for a number of people are still pretty visceral, pretty raw.
“And on reflection, it all sort of got me thinking about the outfit and why people joined in the first place.”
That inspiration, mixed with the inspiration Mercer garnered from Tim O’Brien’s book The Things They Carried, finally led him to write a blog post last month, soliciting stories from his peers.
“Because of what happened over the last two years I really wasn’t sure if many people would respond, but I’m actually overwhelmed with the response. It’s been pretty neat.”
Mercer has been posting all of the stories he receives on his blog. He said so far he’s received between 15 and 20 and he has promises for at least a dozen more.
Although the stories vary, depending on the position, the park or the person, it’s easy to find the common thread that weaves its way through each of the tales: Parks employees, both present and past, joined for the lifestyle and for a desire to protect Canada’s treasured wildlife and land.
“Hiking and exploring in the backcountry was my passion,” wrote former park warden Monika Schaefer, “and while working for Parks Canada Visitor Services at the Icefield Centre and the trail office in Jasper, I had ample opportunity to go hiking every single weekend and after the season finished each autumn. It was wonderful.”
In Schaefer’s account, she notes that it had never even occurred to her that she could be a warden, and it wasn’t until her friend, a park warden, said, “why not?” that she asked herself that question, applied and finally became one herself.
“The next few years of being a backcountry warden were such a rich period of my life,” wrote Schaefer.
“You work hard, morning to night, and yet it is never hectic. You learn to take care of things yourself when stuff happens, and stuff does happen. Being in nature, surrounded by beauty, breathing good air, drinking water right from the source, doing good physical work, watching the wildlife, it was all so incredible and wonderful.”
Schaefer is just one of many who have had their stories published on Mercer’s blog, and he hopes there will be many more.
And ultimately, Mercer said he hopes to turn the accounts into a book one day. He’s not yet sure what that will look like. It could be a compilation of the stories as they’re written, or it could become a work of fiction. He said he might also choose the most popular stories and augment them with interviews that delve deeper into the person’s career and experiences with the outfit.
“I’ve got a number of irons in the fire, whether or not any of them come to fruition, we’ll see,” he said.
For now, the stories are available by visiting
www.georgemercer.com and searching “Why They Joined”.
Nicole Veerman
[email protected]
