By Ian Tennant
The Eagle
One would think that Brian Winter would have plenty of time on his hands since he retired from the Cochrane Fire Department at the end of 2006.
Sure, he spent part of a Friday afternoon chatting in a coffee shop, but at 54 he’s a man who leaves the impression that he’s just getting started in life.
After nearly three decades with the fire department — starting out as a volunteer, making his way to fire chief and then eventually safety codes inspector-fire and director of disaster services — Winter is using his free time wisely.
He works out, plays goal in men’s hockey leagues and lunch-time pick-up games, has been mulling a job offer in the private sector, has joined the Labour Day parade organizing committee and is even considering a run for council in the fall election.
“It could be something in the future,” Winter said Jan. 26, adding a man who has lived in Cochrane for 32 years and worked for the town for 28 may have insights to offer. “I’m not going to promise anything, but we’ll see what takes place.”
Winter sat down briefly last week to reminisce about a career that has spanned the evolution of a town from a sleepy little burgh by the Bow River into one that is wrestling with unprecedented growth.
When Winter and his wife Ginny moved here in 1975, Cochrane had about 1,200 people, cows could be heard mooing from the backyard of their house on First Street and Baird Avenue, and the trailer park was the western edge of town.
He was with the Calgary Fire Department in 1975 when his captain, Al Little, also a Cochrane resident, recruited Winter to join the local all-volunteer force. Little was instrumental in pushing the town to upgrade its fire service, resulting in the opening of a new hall in 1980 — the three southern-most bays of the current fire hall. It used to hold two fire engines — a 1961 model called “Old Red”, and a 1974 Dodge — but now houses ambulances.
In 1980 the town made the fire chief a full-time position but by October 1981 a new chief was needed. Winter remembers volunteers sitting around asking, “Who wants to be fire chief?”
“They said, ‘Why don’t you take it, you’ve got lots of time,” Winter chuckled.
From October to December in 1981 Winter was the interim chief and was then offered the job formally on Jan. 2, 1982. Discussions began that year about buying another truck to help fight rural fires. Winter recalls the mayor at the time, Caroline Godfrey, wouldn’t allow the expenditure because she was battling the M.D. of Rocky View.
If a call came from the rural area, Winter said firefighters would have to “jump in the back of people’s cars with backpacks to fight fires.”
One day they stood at the fire hall and watched helplessly as a house, located near the road to Bow Valley High School, burn down to its foundation.
That was enough for the M.D. and some residents in the area, so they went to Red Deer and bought a fire truck.
Problem was, it was too long for the new hall.
“We couldn’t fit that sucker in the fire hall,” laughed Winter.
That was just one of many growing pains for the town.
Winter, also trained as a paramedic, remembers how Dr. Dennis Fundytus would get a medical call and the two of them would jump in the doctor’s car and head to the emergency.
By early 1983, the townsfolk had had enough — they demanded council and Godfrey, who died in 2003, create an ambulance service.
When council gathered in the chambers, in the basement of the old town hall, there was not enough room for the public.
“They were looking in the windows, that’s how crowded it was,” Winter said.
A meeting was called for the Cochrane High gymnasium. It too was packed, Winter said, and about 97 per cent of those in attendance demanded an ambulance service.
Winter said councillors huddled up right after the public left and the next day he was given orders to start an ambulance service by July 1, 1983.
The service kept growing from there, eventually operating 24-hours a day. Two full-time paramedics were hired in 1990, and eventually two ambulances became three.
Winter recalls other major fires he helped fight — an elevator full of grain, and a persistent blaze at the bulk oil fuel station on Railway Street. But a crucial, personal battle erupted in 1997 when the town wanted to make a change. A review of the fire department was executed and Winter was ultimately asked to either leave or stay, but not as fire chief.
Winter sat down with his wife and five kids — Bridget, Cara, Jeremy, Krystal and Alicia — and voted on whether to stay or take a job in Fort McMurray.
“I sucked it up and the family voted to stay,” he said, still clearly rankled by the turn of events, but not unhappy with the outcome.
“I think probably, overall, it was the best thing to happen.”
It was around this time, followed by a week in the hospital with chest pains, that Winter decided to change his lifestyle.
Frank Wesseling, the town’s director of planning and engineering, suggested Winter take up running.
“‘Does this look like a running body to you’,” Winter, built like a linebacker, remembers telling his buddy Wesseling.
But run he did, starting on a treadmill and before long Winter was signing up for marathons. He’s finished 14 and 35 or more half-marathons.
“I just enjoy running,” he declared.
Now that he’s retired, Winter will have lots of time to run, skate and work out, but he’s also looking forward to family time.
“I think it’s time to give back to people who supported me, my family and my folks.”
Winter will also be thanked on Feb. 10, starting at 1 p.m. at the Cochrane Alliance Church, when friends and family will gather to recap a long career.
But Winter, a bundle of energy, may just be getting started.
“I paid 32 years into my pension and I want 32 years out of it,” he joked.
That could happen, considering he’ll turn 55 on Feb. 19, the day his mother turns 90 while his dad is 95.
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