Charlie Slade: They had a lookout up on Sproat Mountain back of Arrowhead for several years. Well, we had one of those rag tents up there at first, and then we got a little money and put up a prefab, 14' x 14'. I built that and then raised it up and put a cement basement underneath. This raised it another eight feet. But this was a very good site. That's why I picked it out, mainly, because it almost never got a lightening strike. Storms blew all around you there.
Milton Parent: This had nothing to do with the ground there?
Charlie Slade: Well, I've been around this country for years, and I've noticed the storms always take the same paths. Time after time there are places where it hits all the time and there are other places where it practically never goes. Down in the Nelson office, they used to have a map for the whole district here, and they marked in all the fires. The map was all spliced together. It took up all one wall, you know. There were strips across this map where you could hardly put your finger in between the lightening strikes, and in other places not a thing. This is one of the reasons I picked out this site.
Milton Parent: So you were up on Sproat for quite a while then, were you?
Charlie Slade: I wasn't the lookout man up there. I did quite a few jobs up there. I was the Assistant Ranger in Arrowhead, you see, so it was quite a few jobs up there. I used to get up there with the excuse to do a little work. Of course, whenever I got a new lookout man, why I had to go up and spend a day or two with him to break him in.
