Fish Creek

About the Book

The story of "Fish Creek: A Western Adventure" came to be put down on paper at the urging of friends and relatives who constantly told me I had a way with telling stories and the stories I told were interesting and that they liked to hear me tell them. With their encouragement I put pen to paper and have told of my adventures as a boy growing up and then as a young man and his desire to see America and the world. The accounts in this narrative are true and to the best of my ability accurate; after forty-two years the names of some of the people have faded, but they were real people and the impact they made on my life was real. In fact, I don’t think that it makes much difference what a person’s name is, but it is the relationship you develop with the person and what you learn from them and share with them that is important. This is a story of many of those relationships, as well as my thoughts of man and his relationship with his environment.

About the Author

Mr. Lodder was born in Syracuse, NY, in 1936 and moved to Baldwinsville, NY, as an infant. Here he spent his youth growing up in a small rural town in upstate New York. It was around the dinning room table on Sunday afternoons after dinner that he learned of his family’s history and developed the longing to travel. The stories spun by his grandparents and parents sparked a curiosity in him to visit new places, meet people and question the world around him, and to keep an open mind and to treasure his experiences through out his life. This quest resulted in his servicing a tour of duty in the U.S. Navy, achieving the rank of Petty Officer 2^nd Class and going on to earn a BS degree in Conservation Game Management from the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell in 1963. While at Cornell, he spent the summers of 1960 and 1961 in the Forest Service, working on District Four of the Nez Perce National Forest. It was while working for the Forest Service that most the experiences in this account were lived. His firefighting experiences and his life in Fish Creek Lookout led to his questioning of accepted forest practices then being used. It also led to his questioning man’s ability to live with his fellow man and to control his own outcome.

Mr. Lodder went on to serve the Boy Scouts of America as a District Scout Executive, leaving that position after seven years of service. A brief stint as a store manager and then in wholesaling lead him to a final career as a self-employed craftsman of wooden toys, an occupation he has enjoyed for over 30 years.