DUANE ANDERSON AND DARLA LESLIE
UPPER SOURIS NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
AUGUST 6, 2002 BY PHIL HILL
MR. HILL: I am visiting with Duane Anderson. It is August 6, 2002. We are at the
Headquarters of the Upper Souris National Wildlife Refuge. Duane has been very helpful
in giving us a lot of information about the Refuge. He turned over a key to me. We spent
two days, or a day and a half at least, seeing all of this. I wanted to talk to Duane a little
bit about his experiences with the Service. Duane, you told me yesterday that you have
been the Service about twenty years, is that correct?
MR. ANDERSON: That’s correct. I started in November of 1977, right here. And this
is the only Refuge I have even been on. I’ve had a chance to transfer a couple of times but
I turned that down for some personal reasons. I am not sorry that I turned those down.
This has been a real good area for me, and a good State to live in. Obviously, I am very
partial to this Refuge so I’ve been here my entire career.
MR. HILL: You were a schoolteacher before you [joined the Service], what did you teach
in school?
MR. ANDERSON: That’s correct. I taught high school Science for seven years in the
Minot Public School System. I taught Physical Science and Biology.
MR. HILL: I noticed that your title is Biological Technician and Refuge Officer. So you
are a Biologist?
MR. ANDERSON: Well, a lot of people that work for the Fish and Wildlife Service are
biologists by nature and by their education. However, there are a lot of them that have
different titles than Biologists. You know, the Refuge Manager is a Biologist. The
Assistant Manager is Biologist. There are strictly biologists with that as their main title.
Mine is Biological Technician, although I do have a degree in Biology.
MR. HILL: What are some of the highlights of your twenty-five years with the Service,
that you can think about?
MR. ANDERSON: Oh boy! You know, I had a real lot of good experiences out here,
Phil. Early on in my career, I got involved with more biology than I do right now. Times
have changed. My job description had changed. My duties have changed. We did a lot
of different types of biology than we do now. We spent a lot more time in the field
actually counting and doing surveys on ducks, geese and some of the deer, beaver and
different creatures like that. So, I spent an awful lot of time in the field. However, the
style of biology has changed right now. There’s more studies going on. The GPS system
has entered in to vegetation studies probably more than anything. Like a tell a lot of
people and some of the students, and the school kids that if you have good habitat out
there, the wildlife will do pretty well. We are right now in a mode of dealing more with
habitat, and survey work, grassland and timber management, and things like that. As far
as some of the other highlights in my career, I have always wanted to do Law
Enforcement. And they sent me to our Training Academy in 1980. I have been Refuge
Office, slash Game Warden, slash Federal Officer, however you want to label it since that
time. I have been involved in a lot of different Law Enforcement activities over the years.
There is a real need out there for law enforcement to protect the resources. There’s a lot
of folks out there that use the resource above and beyond what they should legally do, or
can legally do. And it’s up to Law Enforcement, whether they are State or Federal
people, to work on this problem. It’s a problem that isn’t going away and hasn’t gotten a
whole lot better. You know, I thought ‘I’m going to clean up this place’ when I came on
in 1980 as a Refuge Officer. And I haven’t been able to do it and I probably won’t before
my career ends. So, I’ve really enjoyed the law enforcement end of it, and the early years
in the biology end of it.
A third highlight, these aren’t necessarily in order Phil, but I get involved in a lot
of water management. There’s a lot of water moving through the Souris Valley, the Souris
River. The drainage starts up in Canada. There is a huge portion of the drainage basin up
in Canada. We’ve had some horrendous floods in this valley starting in 1969. There have
been several of them since then. We do a lot of water management here, not only for the
wildlife and the Refuges, including the J. Clark Salyer Refuge, but we have to manage
water in order to lessen impacts on downstream landowners in the city of Minot and
Velva and some of the other cities that are on the river. If we have a winter where is a lot
of snow, and a lot of run-off is predicted, between the Refuge Manager and myself we
spend a great deal of time on water management. That’s a very big challenge. It’s
interesting and I enjoy that a lot as well. We’ve had some huge flood control projects that
have occurred, construction-wise, as far as rebuilding Lake Darling Dam and some other
projects on the river that I have been involved with over the years. That’s been exciting;
to watch our water management capabilities grow plus helping to reduce the impacts from
high flow, and high run-off years. It impacts not only the Refuge, but the folks that live
in the valley as well. The early years in biology, my law enforcement career, and water
management have been things that I have really enjoyed.
MR. HILL: In your law enforcement duties, are you saying that there are substantial
numbers of people who come in here and hunt and fish illegally?
MR. ANDERSON: I wouldn’t call it, “substantial”. We probably have, well; we do
have the highest public use of any Refuge in the State of North Dakota. But, there are
instances where there has been illegal hunting of one sort or another; failure to tag deer,
hunting birds of any sort on the Refuge when they aren’t supposed to be, ‘sneaking’ in to
the Refuge is I guess a term that is kind of common. They sneak in to retrieve an animal
that they have probably shot. There’s a lot of fishing on the lake and in the river. There
is ‘over-limiting’ taking place because we are a very good fishing lake. People have taken
over their limits. There is fishing without a license once in a while. We have a lot of
boating activity, mainly associated with fishing of course. There are some problems with
life jackets and different boating violations. Then there are some of the other common
problems like littering, vehicle violations as far as reckless driving, dogs off of leashes and
just some common problems. I don’t want to overlook some of the more serious ones,
but there are a lot more of these common, everyday little problems than people really
think sometimes.
MR. HILL: We talked to Darla a little bit about the use of volunteers. And we know
from fact that my wife and I both volunteer at NCTC. We are interested in that. Darla
indicated that she sort of manages certain things for volunteers. Would she be the
‘Volunteer Coordinator’, if there is one? Do you work with volunteers?
MR. ANDERSON: I work with volunteers quite a bit Phil. In the early years I spent
quite a bit of time working with some Sportsmen’s Clubs that came out here to do
different projects and help us. I still do that on occasion, although we don’t seem to have
the participation from Sportsmen’s Clubs that we did at one time. We do have
individuals that do want to volunteer. You met Marshall Hill yesterday. He is one of our
volunteers. He has been a steady volunteer for several years. He comes out and works
on the Wood duck box project for us. He’ll volunteer for other things. We have several
stand-byes, I guess. When you call them, they’ll come and help you, or, if they have time
they’ll come and work with you. Tom Pabian[sic?], the Assistant Refuge Manager has
worked with some of the student volunteers. These are kids that are going to college,
majoring in Wildlife Management. They come out here for the summer and volunteer.
They don’t get no wages. We take care of their room and board. They volunteer their
time to get some good experience. Tom has worked with them. In a sense, we’ve all
worked with volunteers at one time or another. We don’t have a specific ‘volunteer
coordinator’ but I do work quite a bit with the volunteers.
MR. HILL: Now, where these college students spend the summer; is that where you
showed us yesterday down by the shed and the house, and those trailers down there?
MR. ANDERSON: Yes, that’s where we house the student volunteers down there.
They are mobile homes, but they are very nice and some of these students welcome a nice
place to live in the summer time. We get a lot of work out of them. We interview for
these people. They apply for these jobs, the students volunteers do. Not every student
that calls and wants to volunteer gets a position. There is some competition out there,
and that is good.
MR. HILL: You’ve been in the Service for twenty-five years. Carla was saying that
she’s been working here as a volunteer, one time when her husband came up here in the
Air Force. How long have Tom and Dean been in the Service, do you know?
MR. ANDERSON: Dean has been here since about 1985, I believe. There is a plaque
out here on the wall that will clarify that for me. He’s been here since about 1985. Tom
has been here I believe about six years.
MR. HILL: So, you’re the ‘senior’ guy in terms of service?
MR. ANDERSON: I guess I am the “senior” person out here. Although our
Maintenance Man who is on sick leave right now, has been here longer than I have.
That’s fairly common, however, with the Maintenance positions. They spend their
entire career here. So I guess, in a sense I am the senior person here in the office, yeah.
MR. HILL: One thing that has intrigued me is, and from reviewing the CCC reports, that
there was a tremendous amount of workmen doing rip-rap [?] work around here. I have
noticed riprap work around bridges and different places around the lake. How much, or,
do you know if any of that rip-rap work is the same sixty or sixty-five years ago?
MR. ANDERSON: No, it has not all been replaced, Phil. There are portions of
embankments and spillway areas leading up to some of these water control structures that
are still original riprap. Although, on Lake Darling dam, there has been a lot of it added
over the years because of the damages from water. Some of our smaller dams still have
the original riprap in place. It amazes me to this day, the construction of some of those
facilities; the dams. The work that was done and is still in place after all this time. When
you think about the time frame, from the mid 1930’s to today. That’s a long time for
concrete and riprap and rock to withstand the elements of North Dakota. There are
several of those places that are original. I could almost guarantee it, because nothing has
ever been disturbed or changed since I have been here. So yeah, it is true.
MR. HILL: Another thing; when I was reading the reports, I got tired of looking at all of
the amount of time that they spent on the truck trails. You know, working on truck
trails. Having driven around here yesterday and today, I am so thankful they did all that!
Because…. [Both men laughing]
MR. ANDERSON: There are a lot of trails on the Refuge. I can’t even tell you how
many miles. It’s got to be close to one hundred miles of trails on the Refuge. Of course,
you are familiar with the type of equipment that they used to build those things. A lot of
it was just a plain old shovel, and some horse-drawn equipment like a small scraper, and
small trucks of all sorts. Some of those roads are original. We may have done some
repairs as far as culverts, and maybe a little gravel. But a lot of the roads that you have
driven on are original grades. It’s the only way to get around the Refuge and do some
management, law enforcement and surveys. I don’t know how else we’d do it.
MR. HILL: I know that we couldn’t have done very much without them.
MR. ANDERSON: No.
MR. HILL: I know that you are pressed for time. This has been a fabulous experience
for us. And I just wondered if there was anything that we haven’t talked about. I know
that you could talk about a lot more things that we have covered. But if there is
something else that you would like to say, please do.
MR. ANDERSON: I’ve talked a lot about the Refuge and my career here, and the things
that have been done over the years. Getting back to your favorite subject of course, the
CCC; there is a lot of interest in the CCC program. We do get quite a few visitors,
primarily in the summer obviously. They are people who worked here in the CCC days,
helping to build the Refuge. They come out here and look at some of the projects that
they probably worked on. Of course, they want to talk about the changes and things that
have happened here. If you have a lot of time, I am sure that there is folks in the area that
you could interview and talk to that worked on the project. There is an organization
within the State that have reunions every year.
MR. HILL: There’s a national organization of the CCC alumni. I have looked at their
web page.
MR. ANDERSON: There’s folks within the state of course that are part of that and they
organize some of these reunions that they occasionally have. One of my goals is that I
would like to develop more displays and set up more photos. You know, the old photos
of the days of the construction. I just don’t have time right know with everything else
that’s going on at the Refuge. Maybe when I retire I can come back and volunteer and put
together some displays about the history of the Refuge. It intrigues me when I look
through the files and old photos of some of these things. There are binders that have all
of the information from all of the documents that you have worked with. And there are
folks that come in that want to talk about this. There is a lot of historians out there. And
being that the Refuge was built in the 1930’s with the CCC program, they are extremely
interested, and I would like to be able to provide them with more knowledge and more
photos and more documentation if I could. Maybe when I retire, Phil.
MR. HILL: Hopefully! I bet that’s a long time. The fellow that we talked to in Mohall
who helped us to know where the camp was said that there were four people from
Mohall that worked in the CCC. And fortunately, they are still alive and still living there.
This man I talked to was a little bit older than I am, but he couldn’t remember any of their
names. So I didn’t have a chance, and I really didn’t have time to go with them. We just
wanted to see more of the Refuge.
MR. ANDERSON: Well, if you have time, I am sure there are some older folks in the
area that could provide you with more information and more names. You’ll have to come
back another time and set that up.
MR. HILL: I would like to. Let me close with this; thank you very much for all you’ve
done. I appreciate your helping us yesterday. We’ve had a wonderful visit. The birds
look awfully happy!
MR. ANDERSON: Well, we hope they are!
MR. HILL: I think that you are successful in that regard. There sure are a lot of them.
MR. ANDERSON: Yeah, this is a busy time of the year for us, and it’s going to get
busier with the fall migration coming on. So there are going to be a lot more birds around
than you see now. But with the drought the way it is in this area, a lot of the birds come
back to the Refuge and the lake and river since adjoining wetlands dry up and the only
place they find water is on the Refuge. That’s one of the reasons you are seeing a lot of
birds.
MR. HILL: Well thank you very much for your time.
[Mr. Hill begins to speak with another individual identified as Darla]
MR. HILL: What ever you want to say. This is another very brief interview. She looks
like she’s busy with Darla. I don’t know her last name, but she’s been at the Refuge for
about two and a half years. She is originally from southeastern North Dakota and
Minnesota, and her husband is in the Air Force. Do you want to tell us just very briefly,
about your experiences working here at the Refuge?
MRS. LESLIE: I am Darla Leslie, and as you say, I have been here about two years in
this position. I am currently the Administrative Assistant here, so I am doing a lot of
budget and payroll. I also get into the public use end of things. I do some talks for
schools. One of the things I have really worked on for the last couple of years is
developing an International Migratory Bird Day event. Last year was the first year that I
did it. I had about thirty people here all day. This year, 2002, I did it again and I had
about two to three hundred people here.
MR. HILL: Oh my goodness!
MRS. LESLIE: So, that went really well for the second year. Prior to being in this
position, I was a temporary 1040-hour employee. So, I was out on the Fence Crew. I
helped with Botulism checks and did some of the biological survey work. I also did trail
maintenance, public use, and whatever happened to come up at the time. It’s been a good
refuge to work at. I’ve enjoyed my time here and I anticipate that I will be here for some
time longer.
MR. HILL: Now how long it your husband going to be stationed at the Air Force base?
MRS. LESLIE: I told my husband that we’re not moving! [Laughing]
MR. HILL: Oh, I see. I hadn’t heard that one before!
MRS. LESLIE: No, he’s close to retirement. He’s got twenty-two years in, so when
they lift stop loss, he could retire anytime. Based on that, we’ve kind of set roots down
here in this area. I don’t plan on going anyplace.
MR. HILL: I’ve met you just briefly here, but he isn’t going to go anyplace without you,
I can tell you that! I can sense that. And with that International Migratory Bird Day,
you went from how many people?
MRS. LESLIE: I had about thirty people here the first year. And I had two hundred to
three hundred people here in 2002. That was just the tip of the iceberg. I actually had
planned for a whole weeklong event and had school classed scheduled to come out the
whole week. We got ten inches of very wet, sticky snow so most of my schools
cancelled. So that was just the numbers that I had on Saturday. My staff that was here,
everybody was just floored. They didn’t expect that many people to be here that day.
MR. HILL: There’s one thing I meant to ask Duane about. In the old CCC records at
one time they had a Duck Hospital. Do you have any idea where or what it was?
MRS. LESLIE: I do not.
MR. HILL: When they started, they had a lot of ducks that had botulism. And they had
some that were injured and various other things, so they set up some pens, in effect, in
parts of the lake, or around the ponds where they keep the ducks until they were able to
get out on their own. They are very proud of the records that they have of the recoveries.
MRS. LESLIE: I hadn’t heard anything about that.
MR. HILL: Well, I’ll let you get back to work because I know you want to home.
MRS. LESLIE: Yeah, actually I have to close and get my butt on the road. I have to pick
my daughter up at daycare.
MR. HILL: How many children do you have?
MRS. LESLIE: I have one, and she is twenty-one months old. So we’re busy.
MR. HILL: You are! So I’ll leave you alone. And thank you!
