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Bad luck on the peak of Algonquin, the state’s second highest mountain, can be fatal in winter. On December 29th, 1979, a member of the Brooklyn College Outing Club took a fall just shy of the summit. Tremendous pain shot through the shoulder of 18-year-old Michael Boxer.
Thankfully his legs were unaffected, and he was able to walk for a time before rangers arrived, stabilizing the injury and carrying him out to minimize the pain and more safely navigate the terrain. The swelling was severe and upon arriving at the hospital, it was learned the shoulder was dislocated.
The rangers I spoke to for this article – 40 years after it happened – can’t remember many details from that rescue, but they do remember Michael Boxer by name and the search for him on the same mountain, 371 days later. » Continue Reading.
The last few years have brought a dramatic shift in fire behavior in the Western United States. Fires are more intense, more common in the wildland-urban interface, and the burning seasons are longer. Most fire professionals no longer even recognize “fire seasons” in parts of the country, but rather “fire years.” All of this is occurring while there is shrinking pool of human resources to fight fires.
When historians look through archival photos, it can be difficult to analyze an image’s authenticity. The question is not whether the image is genuine, per say, but how frank or candid the photo really is. This can be especially challenging when looking through photographs taken by government agencies who, understandably, have an agenda and often preserved images that were created with a certain narrative in mind. This is why, while the historic photos of Forest Rangers that graced the glossy pages of the Conservationist Magazine have become iconic, I tend to prefer to obtain photos from the rangers personal collections. 
Autumn of 1948 had been a particularly dry season. Forest Rangers of that era often remained at their headquarters awaiting a phone call reporting the location of a blaze. The radio system of that time was poor but most outposts and fire towers were connected via phone line.
A striking old black and white photograph of a Forest Ranger posted on the 
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