I have never been interested in politics nor ever a member of any political party. It has always been my attitude that people should be hired on merit and that I, in my new position at Fort Battleford, had also be hired as such. I had been given a responsibility and would do the best I could, working within my own convictions. Almost immediately, however, I found that politics played a role in any government operation even though local and small. It was hard for me to believe that people fully expected I was part of the party in power and that had gotten me the job. A few days after starting work I received an official visit from Superintendent MacFarlane from Prince Albert National Park and Ferg Lothian from Ottawa. They were there to lay out an endless and confusing list of instructions for filling out reports, forms, controls, procedures, systems and on and on. I was in wonderment and questioned what I had gotten myself into but the unbelievable punch was that I must co-operate with the local political committee.

By spring the party in power was certain I was not one of them but confused because how could I be of the opposition and gotten the job. It helped convince them that I was not at all political when they handed me a list of names with the comment:

“Here is who you can hire this season” and I replied

“If there are any of your party who are capable of honest work, they may compete with others interested in the jobs.”

It was not long until visiting supervisors again advised that co-operation with the local committee was required. I had little at stake in this job, so enquired from Ottawa what was expected in so far as the extent of co-operation. Of course, no one could openly support party partisanship when it came to hiring. The battle was won but the war waged on for several years. Two things finally eliminated this local conflict: the chairman of the local Liberals resigned and even though his successor made some attempts he was unable to make any gains in converting me to political co-operation. Even though the ex-chairman came to make peace with me. He said he was only trying to do his job, carrying out the wishes of the membership. He was apologetic but I was not ready to give in. Secondly J. G. Diefenbacker and the federal conservatives were swept to power and the local political interest was no longer directed toward the Fort.

The logic of the need for many of the things they say must be done is a mystery to me. The question of what use many of them are never left me as long as I worked for the government. Giving priority to those things that I judged most important was my simple survival tactic and I often found that most everything else disappeared anyway.