Entry - September 20, 1936

10.00PM Went to town tonight and had a pretty fair time. Fred Osterd went to the hospital today. He had a fracture of the lower part of his spine.

Robert

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Comments from Chris

This could be a dangerous job as you have seen. The CCC had a Division of Safety which promoted safety within the Corps and investigated accidents. I've been unsuccessfully trying to find Fred in National Archives records which contain many of these accident reports. There are thousands of these records available if you are doing any research. Get started at http://www.archives.gov.

Robert is third from left
From Robert's CCC Photo Collection

Entry - September 19, 1936

7.00 There sure is a sign of winter here. The bears are all going in and the evenings are getting shorter. I guess they will soon be stopping the softball games at home soon.

Robert

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Comments from Chris

This is about the time for bears to go into hibernation. Before doing so they will be eating to gain fat and prepare for an extended period of reduced metabolism. Food and water intake will increase significantly. Once they go in to hibernation, their energy consumption will be cut in half. The bear's body temperature will drop by about 10 degrees. Their heart rate will drop to about 25 beats per minute and they will only breathe about once every 45 seconds.

Bear hibernation really is pretty amazing. Bears can even give birth and nurse while hibernating. What a thing to wake up to.  

Robert Making Coffee
From Robert's CCC Photo Collection

Cozy Sleeping Bear
By Benson Kua from Toronto, Canada (Sleeping bear 2  Uploaded by tm) [CC BY-SA 2.0 

Entry - September 18, 1936

8.00 The buzz saw broke down today. We had to saw wood with a cross cut saw for the kitchen. It sure did seem funny sawing with a hand saw after all these months with a machine.

Robert

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Comments from Chris


One of the things the CCC was working on was removing burnt trees from the area close to the camp. The Apgar flats area had been burned by a fire in 1929. Many thought the remains of the trees were unsightly, so they set to cutting them down. 

This was a time in history where people were just changing over to caring about leaving the park in its natural state. I mentioned some of this in the August 18th post. It wasn't too long before Robert's time that animals considered unwelcome park inhabitants were hunted. Other desirable animals we fed and encouraged to stay. In the decades ahead this would change and the park would be allowed to go back to a more natural state. No more "Feed the Bears" signs.

Entry - September 17, 1936

8.15 PM Friday. Had a fire in camp today. The old latrine went down to the ground. We got out of about twenty minutes of work on account of it.

Robert

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Comments from Chris

Sounds suspiciously like a convenient way to get rid of the old latrine. At least this wasn't a fire on the side of a mountain.

Entry - September 16, 1936

It snowed today in the woods. They told us today that we were to move to Sherburne Lake across the park to stay for one month. We are to move sometime next week. If we stay in the Sherburne Lake I will be home within a week.

Robert

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Comments from Chris

Lake Sherburne is on the eastern side of the park next to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Only about 12 miles south of the Canadian border. As the crow flies, this was around 30 miles from Robert's camp, but it would be a several hour trip to get there. 

Lake Sherburne used to be several smaller lakes until a dam was built in 1919 and a single lake was formed. It is named after a local businessman of the time, Joseph Sherburne. 

Current camp on bottom left, Lake Sherburne on top right.
Robert's 1936 Glacier National Park map

Lake Sherburne
Photo by Roland Taylor, Flickr

Lake Sherburne
From Google Maps

Entry - September 15, 1936

7.00 PM Dyslin cut his finger in the buzz saw today. We cut up enough wood in one day with the buzz saw to burn the camp about a week. They pulled in all the boys in the lookout towers today. More indications of moving.

Robert

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Comments from Chris

That buzz saw was not something to get your hand around. OHSA would have a fit if this was used in a workplace today. Look at the photo and then check out the YouTube video.

YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrGdgjoUJSg

Back of photo says "Saw Crew". Robert is facing the camera.
From Robert's CCC Photo Collection

Entry - September 14, 1936

9.00 PM Today is Monday and I put in a pretty hard days work out working on the tractor crew. We had another show down inspection today. We must be going to move very soon.

Robert

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Comments from Chris

I had to look it up. I'm not sure how prevalent of a military term showdown inspection is any more, but it is a detailed clothing and equipment inspection. Maybe one of our military readers can comment on that type of inspection. 

As we spoke about before, the CCC camps were administered by the Army. The enrollee followed a military regimen which was disciplined and organized. This would turn out to be an unexpected benefit in the years to come. In three years from Robert's time Hitler would invade Poland (1939) and two years after that, the US would join World War 2 (1941). By then almost 3 million men had been exposed to the military through the CCC program. This training allowed the US to ramp up quickly with experienced men. 

Morning Reveille
From Robert's CCC Photo Collection