The Free Life of a Ranger
Murchie, Archie. 1991. The Free Life of a Ranger : Archie Murchie in the U.S. Forest Service, 1929-1965 with R.T. (Robert Thomas) King. Univ of Nevada Oral History Program, 324 pgs.
Review by John Thomas, Jr.
This book is an account of a person who spent considerable time and effort to get the job done, no matter the conditions. Grit. That is a word that comes to mind. Unafraid is another. Archie Murchie’s life was one that had him involved in Forest and community affairs on many fronts, and having the ability to get along with most people was his self described greatest asset.
In a different time and a different place, Archie Murchie made a conscious effort to get an education and rise above his parent’s life of hard work, injury, and poverty. He went to college for pre- forestry in North Dakota, and in 1928, to Forestry School at U. of Montana. In those days, he says, if you could pass the civil service test you went to work for the USFS, and if not, for the forest products industry.
He relates that the USFS paid a fair wage, although not as much as the forest products industry. Even so, as many did in his lifetime, he chose to work for the USFS. As a civil servant you had a year round job, job security if you worked smart, hard, and had a modicum of people skills. In a difficult era for the United States economy, he most likely made the right choice for himself. In later years, he talks about people jealous of the money USFS Rangers made before WWII.
Archie tells a tale of hard work, trying conditions, long hours, even longer days, and weeks without end. A Ranger’s life was one of being the caretaker for vast areas of public land, at times by yourself. You had seasonal help, mostly to fight fire, but when fires were not burning you used those people to make and clear trails, build bridges and cabins, repair or construct lookout stations, and be a presence on the Forest.
It was a life of toil, much of which was spent as a solitary quest. Archie talks about family and moving his family to town so his kids could attend school. I don’t know if many modern women would accept a husband’s lot that kept him from home for much of the year.
Archie Murchie was more of a range manager than a forest manager. In either case, Rangers come and go, but the grazing permit stays with the ranch in most cases. A great deal of the book is devoted to an assessment of permittees, grazier tricks and strategies, and how to foil a permittee who was still steeped in the culture of the free range, of the times before the Taylor Grazing Act and other public land regulations were enacted to control transient herders. There was a time when bands of sheep were grazed from lambing grounds to spring graze, to shearing graze, to summer graze, to weaning graze and on to winter graze. One big circle of movement of bands of sheep, and all on public lands with out any responsibility to the land or private property.
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