A career in the outdoors

After living and working around the globe, Boyd Wickman chose Central Oregon as a perfect fit for retirement.

Central Oregon fit the criteria for everything he loved to do in his spare time: spend time with horses, ski, play and listen to music and be in a place with room to stretch out and enjoy some solitude.

He left a distinguished career in research with the U.S. Forest Service, but continued managing an experimental forest as a private contractor, coached Special Olympics skiers at Mt. Bachelor, lectured and spent as much time as he could in the backcountry.

Life got exciting with his first assignment as a Forest Entomologist in 1953. Provided by the USFS, Wickman was the assistant project leader for Yosemite National Park to map a needleminer infestation that was causing serious defoliation in the high country. "There were no roads and limited time, so I rode horseback for three weeks mapping the outbreak that covered a 50,000 acre area," he said. The most affected area covered about 10,000 acres including Tuolumne Meadows, some of Yosemite's most popular campgrounds.

Once the mapping was complete and it was time to spray, a treatment contractor and former World War II flying ace named Ace Demars took Wickman up in a Piper Cub.

"I had done a lot of aerial mapping, so he took me with him. He scared the pants off me because he flew into canyons and got really low. I didn't think we'd make it out alive!"

Demars had an old B-18 that he had converted into a spray plane. "I thought he'd get down low like he'd done in the Piper but he chickened out and wouldn't get low enough, so only about 10% of the spray reached the ground. That turned out to be a good thing, because we would have poisoned the whole area. At that time no one knew about DDT's side effects," said Wickman.

After the spray, Wickman rode into the area to check on insect mortality and found it was a complete failure.

"That was the beginning of my career as an entomologist," he said. "All that took place before Rachael Carson's book, "Silent Spring" came out. She wrote about the effects of DDT. People were divided over DDT's use; I was against it mainly because of a graduate seminar I took at UC Berkeley. It was given by Aldo Leopold's son, Starker. Dr. Leopold had a big influence on my career. Unfortunately, DDT was still used in the West for another 20 years."

A few years later, Wickman had another opportunity he couldn't pass up. From contacts he made during his graduate-school days as a ski patrolman, he was recommended for a job as the administrative assistant to the medical director for the 1960 Olympics at Squaw Valley. Since the games were being held on USFS land and they were a sponsor, Wickman was allowed to take time off to live and work in Squaw Valley for over two months.

His choice of professions went back to happy times as a Boy Scout in Orinda, California where he grew up.

"I went to school in a two-room school, where two girls still rode their horses to school and kept them in a shed out back. Scouting activities introduced me to backpacking in the Sierra Nevada," he said.

"Eventually, I was assistant scout leader and I took scouts on camping trips at Camp Wolfboro. It was my job to manage eight donkeys, keeping them healthy, loading the packs and feeding them. Learning how to pack was interesting. That was what made me want to be around horses and use them in my job."

Because of his love of horses and packing into the backcountry, Wickman established research plots that required the use of pack animals to get to his work.

"I could cover twice as much ground as the guys that walked," he said.

His home outside Sisters is full of musical instruments including a banjo, several guitars, harmonicas, a snare drum and a recent gift from Ireland, called a bodhran.

"I've always wanted to learn how to play one of those," he said.

Growing up in a musical family, he learned to play a variety of instruments and eventually played in a bluegrass band in the Bay Area.

"I got involved with the Sisters Folk Festival because I wanted to support the Americana Project," he noted.

Wickman plays music with friends and attends many local concerts.

Wickman still starts his day and ends it with horses. Every morning he walks to the barn, throws hay and checks on the four horses in his care. He admittedly spoils them with countless carrots and catering to their every whim. At night, he gives them their dinner, closes up the barn and walks back home to eat dinner and later pick up a guitar and play a few tunes with his long-time companion Mimi Graves.

The two of them have carved out a life in Central Oregon, enjoying the mountain views from their living room and watching the hawk poles they have around the horse pastures. There's always something happening outside their window. Wickman wouldn't have it any other way.