A book about yesterday´s life in Wisconsin by an outstanding Conservation Warden. Everyone who loves the outdoors -- and the people who roam there -- will love these tales.Chauncey Weitz was a hunter, guide, commercial fisherman, commercial clammer, and foreman of a railroad gang during tough Prohibition years. He got his “degree in psychology” from the hobos he worked with.
In 1932 he started as a Wisconsin Conservation Warden at Eagle River. Until 1965 he worked a field warden, undercover investigator, troubleshooter and supervisor throughout the state.
He was shot at, threatened, and hit. He faced howling windstorms and whitecaps rescuing stranded boaters. Once a violator he was arresting saved him when another wanted to axe him.
Cash from his pocket bought groceries for violators who had no food for their families and sometimes he took violators from court to the relief office to get them help.
His tools were a keen intelligence, an ability to “read” people and sense of justice. There were no radios, no backup, no help. The tools were white ash snowshoes, a Smith & Wesson 38 Special, and Winchester rifle.
Every story is true; every place exists, every conversation happened. This is what it was like to be a Wisconsin Conservation Warden in the “old days.”