Run Down to Idaho

Run Down to Idaho

Now it’s Saturday, July 27th, and I get word that Edmonton and Calgary will host me, so I start driving in that direction. It stopped raining, but it is cloudy. A few white-tailed deer crossed my path. There is a roadblock at Hwy. 40 and Hwy. 16; there are some RCMP checking westbound traffic before Hinton, presumably to see why people are heading towards the fire zone. I get to Haden ROBERT’s place in Airdrie, Alberta, in time for supper. He works with the Highway Patrol for the Alberta Sheriffs (I could only ride with them if I was looking to join up—apparently my quest counts for nothing!). Haden has me sign my first book, Chin Na in Ground Fighting (2003) for him, so now he is one of the few people who has both signed copies of my books. We meet for drinks with another Police Judo aficionado and neighbour to Hayden, Cst. Brant DERRICK, of the Calgary Police Service. Over the next week, I travel back and forth between Calgary and Edmonton to watch their training and to go on ride-alongs. Everywhere, it is the same with drugs, homelessness, and mental illness. It seems there is a bit of Skid Road all over the world.

Hadyn, Brant, and I got a bit of training time together in Hadyn’s basement gym. I note copies of various martial arts books scattered about and realize that he actually studies them. Great! A man after my own heart. I liked using Hadyn’s Hyatt cuffs with the magnetic knurled key attachments. We go over lateral vascular neck restraints, a technique that many agencies have dropped due to knee-jerk reactions from higher-ups that should be nowhere near the use of force policy making, in my humble opinion. I have significant knowledge about this topic as I researched it and taught it to the entirety of the Vancouver Police Department at the behest of the Deputy Chief Constable in the mid-80s, with the capable assistance of the late and great Insp. John McKAY (RIP). On July 31, Brant DERRICK takes me for a tour of their Westwinds Training Campus and then the Calgary Police Services HQ, where I made contact with an old Police Judo student, Cst. Alvin SINGH. He is enjoying his work there.

I then patrol with Dallas GRIMM after attending his parade. He attends the arrest of a gang member, sporting his affiliation with tattoos. A male is later found in that act of power grinding off a bike lock. Still, we attend another arrest of an immigrant male who receives a “Gypsy hug” from a female, and I spotted the subtle hand-off of a folding knife from him to her. She was pissed at me for blowing the whistle on her!

On August 2, I attend the Edmonton Police Service attend parade with Anthony BOSCH and then go on a ride-along with Cst. Sam VISSCHER. He arrests a trespasser with another member—good clean team tactics displayed. There will come a time when the rear bent double twist lock will be the standard for handcuffing arrestees. I don’t say much about my own handcuffing preferences unless they are requested of me.  I do send all those who hosted me a list of Odd Squad videos and links to our H-CUFF (Hands-on Control Using Functional Force) method of handcuffing. I must finish that online course and accompanying book when I can find time…Sam tells me that their schooling consists of 6 months of training with a mere 2 or 3 days of ride-alongs added in. We revive a mild drug overdose without the use of Narcan—relentless annoying questioning does the trick. After shift, I find a quiet industrial area to car camp and am asleep by 0500 hours.

Along the way, on Aug. 3, I meet up with my 2nd Skid Road Rold beat partner, Walt McKAY, in Red Deer for a coffee and a few laughs. We talk about my new lifestyle. “Boondocking” is camping with an RV or a car outside a designated campground and without hookups, whereas “stealth camping” is just mostly car camping without being noticed (as usually it’s not allowed when and where this is done). I guess I do both. I do not really like to camp on residential streets for fear of being called in as a stolen vehicle, given my out-of-town plates and, therefore, nonlocal status. I have yet to have a single problem with my choice of roosting for the night. I keep tightening up my living arrangements and note that I no longer feel that I am on a camping trip; rather, I am enjoying a lifestyle that must be taken at a slower pace of living while living in what is essentially a matted horizontal closet. Getting changed in the back used to be a chore. Now, it just is my way of living. I feel like I have learned to dress and undress an invalid—me. I now take the slower and smarter pace in stride.

I drive to Waterton Lakes National Park which straddles the Alberta/Montana border. I talk Tactical Communications there to the Wardens in the 1990s. My good friend Dan VEDOVA, upon whom I had the honour of bestowing his 2nd-degree black belt in Nisei Karate-do decades ago when he was a Park Warden in Pacific Rim National Park, has a grown-up son, Daniel Jr., who followed his Dad’s footsteps and became a Park Warden there after his graduation a few years ago. He also recently qualified as a use-of-force instructor at the RCMP training academy (Depot), so I was eager to talk to him about his training since I was shut out of their training halls. It sounds like they are still doing the Pressure Point and Control Tactics (PPCT) program, at least to some degree.

This park was so beautiful! After a very brief walk-along with him, he got called out of town in connection with the wildfire situation. It was raining, so I decided to leave town, swollen with “Heritage Day” tourists; we swapped challenge coins and promised to get together at another time. Daniel referred me to a quiet spot out of the park limits to camp, but this time, it was a purging of sour gas that tried to kill me . Even the nearby cows were bellowing in the morning. I packed up quickly and helped to rescue a cow that had ended up on top of a steep scree slope below its herd. The hours of bellowing were because of the separation from the herd, not from the gas. I managed to get a hold of the rancher who owns the cattle, and he and his cowhand were able to shout-steer it back onto the trail. This was a case of sour gas and sweet rescue.

The rainy weather has disappeared! I am now at a crossroads: go east towards Saskatchewan, or south to see Chief Tracey BASTERRECHEA in Idaho. I chose the latter because I also wanted to see this extremely talented Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor, Dr. WANG, in Seattle first regarding my arthritic shoulders (my right one is in an advanced stage of disease, so much so that the shoulder doctor that I consulted was amazed that I could lift my arm above shoulder level). Dr. WANG cured my Sifu’s daughter, Helen, of a thrice-returned stage 4 cancer of the lymph nodes in 1994. Not only is she alive today, but she got married and has a healthy son. How did he do this, and why aren’t oncologists lining up to see how he did this miraculous work? In any case, I chose to have blood cupping done (and herbal medicine prescription). The tainted blood gel it removed looks gross, but it greatly improved my shoulder trouble, at least for the near future.

On Aug. 8, I headed SE into Idaho through Oregon and pulled into Meridian, which abuts against BOISE. Chief BASTERRECHEA showed me around and assigned others to further my tour of their facilities. They have a great scenario village (costing $ 2.4 million in 2021); he arranged a ride-along for me, which was relatively uneventful (“the curse of the ride-along,” as it is known). There are 149 officers working here, so only 30-40 recruits are trained annually. I learned that some smaller police agencies actually put recruits on the road without any training (this can come 1-3 years later!).

I park on a rural road and take Hwy 20 E through Sawtooth Mountains National Forest (this is a bit of a misnomer because there were more brown grasses (sagebrush) and small shrubs with bare soil and rocks than trees that I could see. Where is the forest? The park is huge, so perhaps the trees are hidden from me. Regina and Saskatoon are lining up nicely for me. I stopped at the Crater of the Moon Info Center to learn about the massive basaltic lava flow that occurred 15,000 to 2,000 years ago here in the Snake River Canyon area (south Central Idaho). I entered arid Montana as my odometer passed the 17,000 km mark of my trip since leaving my home in Port Moody on June 23, 2024. For reference, I drove a combined distance of 12,400 km in Australia and New Zealand. I am now on Day 159 of my tour. My Saskatchewan contact, Tracy DUNNIGAN, is really helping me get set in that province!

On August 10, I slipped into the small port of entry into Saskatchewan at Turner. Here, I had my small Canadian-bought Sabre dog spray seized by an overzealous and poorly-trained rookie, who shall go nameless, as he has other problems that he must face. The short story is that after tossing my car without reason, I gave him a Police Judo/Law Enforcement Training Association challenge coin as a reminder that using discretion is only problematic if one does so for personal gain. I hope he learned something from our encounter and about the nature of common sense and integrity. I prefer to take the high road—this makes the open road more enjoyable. Life is good!

 

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