PLSO The Oregon Surveyor November December 2020

20 The Oregon Surveyor  | Vol. 43, No. 6 Featured Article No one disagreed, so we gathered forest duff and lunch sack paper for starter, twigs for kindling, small branches and cones for firewood. We managed to coax the damp materials into a sad affair that struggled to stay alive and spit out a paltry amount of heat. Meanwhile our bodies were get- ting colder, our sack lunches soggier, and our outlooks darker. I remember thinking I should consider my- self lucky that I was not gold hunting in the Yukon in 75-below weather starting a fire under the bows of a snow-laden tree. Small consolation. But I hadn’t counted on McCrae. McCrae is the only man I have ever knownwhomakesme think of Jimmy Dean’s Big Bad John. He didn’t say much, and if you spoke at all, you just said ‘Hi.’ I turned around and McCrae was gone. He had slipped away without a word while Peterson and I fussed with our sad campfire. Within a couple of min - utes we heard a sound echoing through the woods: WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! A minute later comes McCrae with an armload of dry bark that he had hacked off the trunk of a fir snag with his hatchet. It was dry because it had clung to its tree all winter and not soaked up the season’s moisture on the forest floor as our fuel had done. With some careful teepee-like construc- tion and a splash of chainsawgas, wewere backing away from a roaring fire. I have some takeaways from this experience: 1. One of the essential skills one learns during the early, fieldwork- intensive period of a surveying career is making do with the materials at hand. You cannot always run back to the truck. 2. Always carry the 10 essentials. They are not just for hikers. I count 11 pockets and two clipping straps on my survey vest for storage space. 3. One of the best ways to learn is by being mentored. Technology has rendered large field crews all but extinct—not a good thing for interns and not a good thing for safety. 4. If you have a choice, take someone into the woods with you who is a person of action, like Big Bad John. In that same era, during our precious four days off, McCrae taught me to play tennis, and he cut me no slack. After eventually managing to (sometimes) return his nasty serves, I would look up, and there he was, right at the net, like a silent brick wall.  x John Thatcher is a retired Professional Land Surveyor living on Washington’s Olympic Pen- insula since October 2019. He spends his time exploring his new digs by bicycle and motorcycle, visiting lavender farms, monitoring the shipping on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, snuggling with his “buddy boy” cat Thor, and recounting his surveying adventures back in the day. Some non-essential details may be imagined for literary effect. John Thatcher then. John Thatcher now. continued from previous page T