Seat belts & slow chases

I just did a quick calculation in my head and damn I'm old! However, that was not the calculation that I was performing. It seems that the wearing of seat belts has been a law in AB for about 25 years now. No I didn't look it up, I was working for the RCMP when it became law and I think it was in the second year that I was stationed in Peace River. Therefore about 25 years - hence, OMG I'm old!

The reason I bring this up is there is a funny story related to the enforcement of this law. Now, the members all had to radio in from their cars when they were pulling over a vehicle for any reason and give me license tags and vehicle description as well as where they were located. So, I am dutifully writing all of this down as the female Constable relates it to me when I suddenly hear this gagging noise over the radio, then silence. She comes back on a couple of seconds later and finishes telling me where she is, but I can hear her laughing.

She does her check, I do my computer check, she lets me know she is clear and proceeding in whatever direction. An hour or so later she saunters into the comcentre where I am working away (or reading a book) and tells me that she was pulling this vehicle over for not wearing a seat belt, but she forgot to take hers off when she was getting out of the car. She damned near hung herself and had a very interesting bruise for a few days. The fellow she had pulled over, did very well in not laughing at her, so she let him go with a warning, she was laughing too hard to write a ticket anyway.

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One of the things I had to do in that job was to monitor high speed chases. I had to keep the radio repeaters open, tell the detachments that they were heading to that a chase was coming their way and write down everything that was said. This could be almost impossible depending on the circumstances of the chase and the number of vehicles involved.

I had one chase however that I couldn't help but keep up with. First a bit of geography, Peace River is located at the joining of two major rivers and the town is down in the valley. It gets pea soup fog on a regular basis there. Winter fog is especially heavy.

Some silly woman had gassed up her van, then leaving her kid in the baby seat and the vehicle running, had gone in to pay for the gas. This was in the '80's and we didn't have the remotes to lock and unlock doors like we do now, so she had left it unlocked, after all she was only going to be a minute. Well, a minute is all it takes.

I get the phone call and before I can make a radio call, I get a radio call, one of the members had pulled in to gas up so he also got the complaint. The van was heading up the south hill out of town, in pea soup fog, dispatch one of the other cars and he will stay with the mother to keep her apprised. Two cars see the van, pull in behind him and turn on their lights. No response, this guy isn't stopping for anyone.

Most of my transcript from the night was: Yes, we are still behind him, we are doing about 45 kph (28 mph for those readers from the USA), oh now, we are up to 50 kph. He just won't pull over! I can't see to get in front of him. Control, radio McLennan and have them start towards us. Tell them to be careful the hwy is covered in black ice. So I did, then I had to keep track of McLennan detachment too. About 30 minutes into this, I hear: McLennan is that you coming towards us? Yes, I think so. Turn on your over head lights. They are on! Well, I guess that's not you then. About 5 minutes or so after this, the same thing: Is that you? I can see three cars heading toward me. Yes, we see your lights now. So, McLennan pulled in front of the van forcing him to stop and they arrested the guy. The kid? Well, he slept through the whole thing.

Of course after all this time, I can't remember the call numbers of the cars that were involved, but that wouldn't make the tale any better.

For those that have never experienced it, black ice is not visible on the hwys, it just looks like a wet spot so takes you unawares. Here is the wiki description. It is very treacherous.

You can't rollerskate in a buffalo herd

The photo is of the Bison Herd at Elk Island National Park, located just East of Edmonton, AB. You can actually drive through the paddock and see them up close and personal, just don't get out of your vehicle. These are massive beasts and although they look slow and docile they aren't. Especially when they have their cute babies to protect.


For those that are not familiar with it, here is the RCMP crest, it features a Bison head in the centre and way back when they were the Northwest Mounted Police, they wore Buffalo coats in the winter.

The reason I mention this is because there is a real stuffed Bison head, mounted in a plaque hanging at the landing of the stairs in the RCMP S/Div HQ office building where I used to work. That was the first time I had ever seen one up close and they are massive! I think the stairs were the standard three foot width, therefore the landing would have been 6 feet wide. The plaque only had about one foot clearance on either side and it was positioned high enough on the wall that someone six feet could walk under the head without getting knocked out. I know this because I had to walk under it and this was back when I was still able to wear three or four inch heels and did - all the time. It probably stuck out from the wall a good 2.5 - 3 feet and was about four feet from chin to the top of the head. I am guessing at the measurements as I tended to avoid that stair whenever I could and I never actually measured it.


You are probably asking "Why is she going on about Bison today?" Well, we had roast Bison for supper Monday night. Bison is very lean meat, so lean it needs to be marinated before you cook it or you wind up with shoe leather. This was a first attempt on the part of my friends to cook Bison and other than being less well cooked than is our preference for roast meat it turned out rather well. They found the recipe on the web, just picked one at random that sounded good. Next time they try it though, I think they will opt to cook it a bit longer. There are a few Bison farms in AB and they picked up the roast at the local farmers market. It is rather more expensive than beef, so it will not be something we do often, but it made a nice change.

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In other news, I got my new mattress today, it is clean this time, but there are a few pulls in the fabric on the top of the mattress, so I have to phone again and see what they will do.

So, what adventures in food have you experienced?

Where was that again?

The second time I worked for the RCMP, I was a Telecommunications Operator - Civilian Member even. This meant I was no longer paid by the city, I was paid by the Feds and much better I might add.

This job was in a different town, a bit north of home, much smaller place, but it was designated as sub-division headquarters. I have attached a picture of AB, I added a red line about where the subdivision boundaries are. If you follow the hwy up from the green city to where there are two dots side by side, headquarters is the dot on the right - Peace River. It is somewhat central to the s/div so it makes a kind of sense, until you realize that the town only has about 6000 people.
Yes, it takes up about a quarter of the province too - the green dot and the bottom three red dots were all answered by the people at the detachment in GP (green dot) all of the rest went through Peace River. Thirteen detachments, only one of which did not have either a reserve or Metis settlement. The rest made up for that one by have multiples though. We only had two phones with dedicated lines so we knew where those calls were coming from, the rest came in like on an 800 number - anonymously.

My job was to answer phones from all of these places and to advise the cops where they were needed by radio. Usually during the day, the larger detachments had someone in the office, so it was mainly evenings, nights and weekends that we were busy. The other part of my job was to make sure I knew where the cops were, what they were up to and get them help if they needed it and check the computer for warrants etc.

So, you needed to wade through all of that to understand my level of amused frustration about this call:


Me: RCMP how can I help you?

Caller: I need the police for ... (I can no longer remember - maybe a b&e - nothing urgent)

Me: where are you calling from?

Caller: Home

(yeah, thats helpful!)

Me: I'm sorry sir, what town are you calling from?

Caller: I don't live in town.

Me: What is the town nearest to where you live sir?

Caller: Oh, I don't live near town, I must be at least 20 miles out of town.

Me: I'm sorry sir, I am in Peace River, at this hour all the local detachments transfer their calls to me. I need to know what detachment or town you live near or I can't send anyone out to help you.

Caller: Oh, okay, you head west 4 miles then .....(gave me complete directions except the town name)

Me: Sir, are those directions from Peace River?

Caller: No, why would I give you directions from Peace River?

Me: As I just said sir, I am in Peace River and I need to know which detachment you usually call if you require assistance.

Caller: Oh, well, I am outside of ***** where the hell do you think I am? Why am I talking to Peace River?


He then hung up. I had taken the pertinent info, name and what the problem was prior to trying to find out where he was thankfully, so I was able to dispatch a cop out. Thank goodness it was a quite night across the rest of the s/div though.

How do you ...?

Alright, you all want a story. Well, I'll start with this one.

I was still in the training stages at the RCMP office, learning the ropes and trying to figure out the archaic telephone switchboard that they had (a step above cord & plug). I had already had a few odd calls that had nothing what-so-ever to do with police work which I had found very strange. Why are you calling the police for this? But, I would shake my head and then direct them to where they needed to call. For example: Your power is out? Call the power company at 555-1234. (I can see where they would mistake power for police, can't you?)

So, one evening, I was doing the bulk of the work, my trainer was feeling pretty good about just being there if I needed her, when I get the strangest call. One of the rural areas that our detachment covered was south of the river and was home for a lot of Indians - pardon me, First Nations People. (Back then they were still Indians) A resident of that area called as was his habit on a Friday night, except that this time, instead of his usual drunken ranting, he sounded reasonably sober. So, I asked him what I could help him with, after all, he hadn't sworn at me yet, so far all he'd said is hello.

He was quite for a minute, then said, "Well, I want to know..." I made that non-committal umhum sound that you make to keep people talking, "I have a steak!" Okay, good for you. What can the police do for you tonight? (all the while thinking, whoopee you have a steak - so go eat it!) "Can you cook it?" UM, no, I am at work and it is not a police job to cook your steak. "Can you tell me how to cook it?"

I put him on hold and I turned helplessly to my trainer (who is by this time laughing her ass off in the corner) and asked her what to do with this guy. We even checked the office to see if it was one of the boys playing tricks. How do you get to be 80 some years old and never learn to cook? Anyway, I get back on the line with him and with the trainer talking to me between her fits of laughter, we managed to tell him to fry it in a pan on the stove with some butter and that he had to cut it open after a few minutes to see how well cooked it was.

Now, I am not sure if the trainer was laughing harder at the old geezer, or at me for not knowing how to cook a steak either. Of all the people to ask how to cook a steak, he had to get me! Of course, I was 18 and was still living at home.

So, what strange phone calls have you made to the wrong authorities?

I once dialed the fire hall's alarm number by mistake. The last digit was the only difference between it and our home number and I was using a touch tone payphone and the 3rd number stuck so I got 2100 instead of 210? I was mortified! Yes, this was when touch tone phones were just new too, I am that old that I know what dial phones were like.


Good Morning all. Hope it was sort of funny.

Once upon a time

the naive young girl that I once was applied for a job with the City. They arranged for my Social Insurance Number to be assigned and sent to me and then sent me over to be interviewed. The job was as a municipal worker at the RCMP office answering telephones. Well, I didn't get that job, so I decided maybe I should get some further education. About 6 months later - hating school and ready to drop out, I received a phone call - "would you like to come in for another interview?" So I did, I got that job, packed up my school books and headed home to start this new job.

One of the first things they had to do was to fingerprint me. They had to be one file in case ... whatever might happen and they would need to ID the bodies left over. I couldn't start work until this was done, so I trotted right over and the Cst. on the desk took me down and printed me. I got a phone call the next day - prints were no good, could I come down again? This time the Sgt. printed me - still no good, next time one of the guys whose job it is to analyze things like fingerprints did it. Still no good! This time it was going to be done right - the S/Sgt was going to do it himself! No luck!

Now each time I had been down to be fingerprinted, I had to go down to where the cells are and past anyone who might be incarcerated for whatever reason. This was my first job - I was maybe 18 and had not really given up my shy tendencies and was actually a very sweet innocent young thing. So, I get another call to come back and this time, I am being printed by a real pro! This guy got prints no matter how cranky or uncooperative the person was. He knew his stuff! He got a beautiful set of prints, everyone was so happy - me especially! What was so special about this guy you ask? He was a volunteer guard. The cells in a police station at the time (not sure about now) were watched over by retired men (& women when necessary) that volunteered to do the job (I think they did get a stipend, but it wouldn't have been much). They had a panic button if any ruckus started and they pretty much just made sure that no-one choked, or hung themselves, fed them and helped get them booked into the cells, by helping with photographing and printing.

He must have been about 80 then, a thin wiry fellow everyone called Cowboy, he took me into the bathroom and told me to put my hands under hot running water and leave them there until they had warmed up. (I have always had cold hands) I was not to wash them with soap, just warm water. I came out and he held my hands for a minute and sent me back in - not warm enough yet. When I came out the second time, he declared that they were good now and with his gnarled rough hands ever so gently rolled my fingers through the ink and onto the paper and got a great set of prints. Then he had to take my mug shot - he had his own photo album with mug shots of all of the people that had worked there in the years that he was there. As RCMP members transfer every few years that was a large photo album.

I learned a lot about the idiocy of the general public in that job, lost my shyness, met some life-long friends and no-one would call me sweet or innocent after having worked there. I have some funny stories from those times which I will pull out from time to time and share with you. I was only an ME for about a year, but I did go on to be a CM (civilian member) for about 4 years at a different detachment, I will include some stories from then too.

Cowboy, where ever you are, you took good fingerprints! My thanks.

Good Morning All.