Brinkman Tree planting

By Dirk Brinkman

August 1970, fighting fire as a faller north of Golden, I strapped the slashing contractor whose crew started the fire onto the helicopter skid after a fallen tree cracked his cervical vertebrae-- wiring his hardhat to the stretcher basket as a windfairing to protect him on the long flight to Nelson over the Purcell Mountains. Nearly bankrupt for having to fight the fire with his whole crew on his payroll, he was worrying about the bill for all of the timber burnt when he had his accident. Later that week i took a fall climbing. At that moment I truly met Ted Davis, whose climbing caution i had initially misread as timidness, and suddenly realized was expertize.