Living the Alaska dream …or is it really just dedication?

The classified ad in the outdoors magazine asked: "Do you enjoy working outdoors with wild animals in remote places with spectacular scenery? Do you enjoy fishing, hunting, hiking and camping, and do you work well with people in a one-on-one situation? Why not be paid to enjoy the outdoor lifestyle you really want and become a game warden?"

Alaska's Fish and Wildlife Protection Troopers, also known as "Brownshirts" can attest to whether that ad bares any resemblance to reality. Three of them from the Big Lake Post of the Department of Public Safety's (DPS) Division of Fish and Wildlife Protection (FWP) share some of their experiences here.

Sgt. Mark Agnew supervises the Big Lake Post, located in the Meadow Creek Mall at the junction of the Parks Highway and Big Lake Cutoff. Troopers Rob Welch and Daryl Magnuson are assigned to this post. Trooper Paul Kosto, the fourth Brownshirt on the Big Lake roster, is in the process of transferring to Nome. Eileen Brooks is the clerk who really runs the office, according to Agnew, and is affectionately known as the "Roadkill Queen" by her co-workers.

Troopers in the Division of Fish and Wildlife Protection undergo the same training as Alaska State Troopers and hold the same law enforcement commission. They are, in fact, state troopers but with a twist -- rather than enforcing the state criminal statutes and regulations, as is the primary responsibility of the troopers, the FWP troopers' primary directive is to enforce the fish and game regulations. However, the Brownshirts can write a traffic ticket or investigate a murder, just like the AST Blueshirts, if the need arises.

Why would a person want to become a FWP trooper? Having attended college and studied toward a civil engineering degree, Welch enjoys not being tied to a desk. He appreciates the patrols that place him in the wild splendor of Alaska's outdoors and the people who hunt, fish and trap there, he said.

"I may come to work knowing I have a report to write," Welch said, "but if the need arises, I could be out checking fishing licenses or patrolling a trapline for illegal sets. Every day is a new experience and brings with it a new set of challenges." Welch has been an FWP trooper for about two years.

Magnuson grew up in rural Colorado and enjoyed hunting, fishing, trapping and being in the outdoors. He developed a great respect for the local game warden and, as a result, became interested in becoming a game warden himself. He received his undergraduate degree in wildlife biology from Colorado State University and ended up taking a job with the Arizona Department of Fish and Game.

He worked as a biologist and game ranger in Arizona for eight years, but had always wanted to live in Alaska. One day, a notice came across his desk saying that Alaska was hiring experienced and qualified nonresidents as FWP troopers.

Magnuson applied for the job and was told he was a prime candidate. He paid his own way to the interviews and, after waiting nearly a year for the right opportunity, he was finally offered a position as an FWP trooper. Magnuson and his wife moved to Alaska to begin his new job, starting with a stint at the Trooper Academy in Sitka to learn "… the Alaskan way of doing business." He has been working as a trooper for nearly three years now.

Agnew, another outdoor enthusiast, grew up in northern California. After working a short stint as a commercial fisherman in Southeastern Alaska and, later, as a logger in California, Agnew knew he wanted to live in Alaska. His interest in law enforcement developed through correspondence with an FWP trooper he met while working in Sitka.

Agnew and his wife moved to Alaska with everything they owned in a Toyota short-bed pickup truck in pursuit of the dream of becoming an Alaska game warden. Agnew financed his own way through the Sitka Trooper Academy as well as other training that was necessary to be certified as a police officer.

A seasonal state enforcement officer position in Galena got Agnew's foot in the door and about eight more months with the Galena Police Department allowed him to gain additional law enforcement experience. From there, Agnew was hired as a full-time Fish and Wildlife enforcement officer in

Kodiak in 1989. His career as an Alaska game warden had begun.

When asked if being in law enforcement had any bearing on his personal life and friendships, Agnew said, "You have to separate your professional life from your personal life. If a friend breaks the law, and he really is a true friend, he will understand I have a job to do. I can't compromise my job, my career and what I believe in for the sake of friendship. A true friend will understand my position and not place me in that type of situation." He half-jokingly tells his fishing and hunting buddies not to make him have to work on his days off.

Welch said FWP encourages troopers to get involved in their communities and become known in their neighborhoods. He said his friends understand that, "… aside from the friendship, I also have a professional responsibility. The law is the law, but if my friend finds himself on the other side of it, he will still be my friend, and I will still be there to help him, but I have to do my job."

Magnuson echoed the comments from both Welch and Agnew. "I tell my friends that I won't jeopardize my career and beliefs to correct their mistake. If you make a mistake, you have to deal with it," Magnuson said.

Agnew tells a story about another trooper he knows who issued a citation to his own wife for keeping an undersized king salmon while sport fishing near Petersburg. The wife had been fishing with some other folks and brought the under-28-inch fish home. When the trooper met his wife at the dock and realized what had happened, he "… wrote her a citation and, with the same pen, a check to pay the fine," according to Agnew. In fact, Agnew said the trooper actually gained a lot of respect in the community for dealing with this situation. And no, the couple didn't end up in divorce court.

When asked about "war stories," Welch said he had not yet encountered anything either humorous or serious enough that was worth telling. "I've never had to use my pepper spray or draw my weapon or use my baton on anybody so far," Welch said. "Every time I've had to arrest somebody, they were willing to go. I've never had anybody go sideways on me," he added.

Magnuson tells about the time he and Agnew were on a fishing patrol in the Yentna River drainage. They spotted two guys known for catching more than their legal limit of salmon and decided to watch from the cover of the riverbank. While fighting mosquitoes attempting to make them both anemic, the two troopers documented the two men catching seven king salmon. When the troopers made their presence known, the two men claimed the fishing wasn't very good. When Agnew started itemizing which guy had caught which fish at what exact time, the men knew they were busted and finally admitted their illegal activity.

Another time, Agnew said, he and another trooper were on snowmachine patrol near the Peters Creek area during the last, late-season, spike-fork moose-hunting season. He and his partner crossed a fresh snowmachine track and they could see that a sled was being pulled by the last snowmachine. They decided to follow the trail and soon found two snowmachines, with sleds, near a dense thicket of brush. Apparently the sound of their approach caused a man to walk out from the thicket in mid-thigh deep snow with his hands in his pockets.

Agnew became suspicious because the man was not wearing snowshoes and was struggling to make progress, all the while keeping his hands firmly in his pockets, rather than using his arms to help his balance. Agnew asked the man what he was doing in the thicket. He answered that his buddy had needed "to go to the bathroom." Agnew then asked if he always accompanied his friend to the bathroom. When the other trooper started laughing, the man hung his head, removed his bloody hands from his pockets and admitted than he and his buddy had shot a cow moose and were gutting and quartering it back in the thicket.

The buddy then appeared, also struggling through the snow with his hands in his pockets. When Agnew confronted him, the man said he had been "using the bathroom." When his friend heard that statement, he told his buddy he had already admitted to the troopers what they had done. The second man then insisted that, in addition to working on the illegal moose, he really had needed to "use the facilities" back in the thicket.

Agnew, in a more serious vein, told about the time he had a 338-magnum rifle intentionally pointed at him. "We had a report of some illegal guiding activity up the Glenn Highway and I was flying in a small DPS-marked helicopter with a civilian pilot," Agnew said. "We were specifically looking for a guiding operation with horses and had spotted three, what turned out to be mules, up on a ridge. We made a pass by the animals and only saw one man holding the mules, but not the other hunters. We made a second pass and still didn't see the other people. I told the pilot to set me down on the ridge top several hundred yards from the mules so the animals wouldn't be scared by the helicopter."

"As the pilot was bringing the helicopter in to land on the ridge top, he noticed the other two men and pointed them out. The pilot was making the landing approach when one of the men on the ground brings his rifle up and starts sighting in on us. At that point, we were only 40 to 50 yards from the two men."

Agnew continued, "The man lowered his rifle and we continued in on the approach to land. The man threw up his rifle a second time and pointed it at us. When he did this again, I thought he was going to fire. I told the pilot to get out of there. I had the pilot drop me off on the backside of the mountain. After landing, I snuck around and down the mountain and made contact with the man holding the mules to find out what was going on. The other two guys were several hundred yards away and didn't know I was there."

"I waited for the two other men to return to the mules and, when they approached, I drew my weapon and disarmed them. The man with the rifle was an assistant guide who was later charged and convicted of two counts of third-degree assault," Agnew concluded. The assistant guide had threatened Agnew and the pilot with his rifle in an effort to try to make them leave the area, he said.

Magnuson experienced probably the worst-case scenario when he responded as backup to a state trooper call for assistance. After arriving on scene, he was involved in a fatal shooting. Because their law enforcement commissions are the same as the troopers, the FWP troopers sometimes find themselves involved in enforcement of the state's criminal codes.

Maintaining a good sense of humor helps the folks assigned to the Big Lake Post cope with the heavy workload and demanding schedules. For instance, Eileen Brooks does most of the janitorial work around the office in addition to her regular office management duties. During my interview with Agnew, Brooks came in to empty the wastebaskets. Brooks isn't comfortable with the title of janitor, however. "I prefer being referred to as Cinderella, she said."

Agnew has one of those light-activated talking catfish mounted on his office wall. One morning he entered his office only to find the fish missing and a ransom note hanging from the nail. After making it known that he would not negotiate with the kidnappers nor pay a ransom, the fish suddenly reappeared the next day. The kidnappers remain at large.

When asked what sort of things the fish said, Welch flipped the light switch activating the fish: "I'm busting outa here tonight, are you with me?" Not only was it clever; it seemed appropriate.

When asked why they stayed with a career that had its share of frustrations, including understaffing, long hours, failure of the court system to follow up on cases, situations where their lives could be threatened and which often required them to spend extended time away from their families, the answer was universal. Welch said, "I stay with the job because it is something that I enjoy doing. The reason why I became a trooper is also the reason why I stay -- I enjoy working in the outdoors."

Magnuson had similar feelings. "I love the outdoors and the wildlife and want to protect both for future generations," he said.

In spite of all the frustrations, Agnew said "… you have to stay focused on doing your job. If you feel the court system or the regulations aren't doing their job, that's not an excuse to neglect doing your own job. I just see the wildlife resources in such jeopardy right now because of the rapidly growing populations of people and the lack of increase in law enforcement effort to coincide with that increase in population."

The FWP troopers in the Big Lake Post all appear to be dedicated to their jobs of enforcing the fish and game laws and regulations in Alaska and helping maintain the wild fish and game populations through their enforcement work -- a job done easier since they all enjoy the outdoor patrols that take them into the splendor of the Alaskan wilderness. Maybe there really is a bit of truth in advertising in that magazine ad after all.