In 1932, Haas was out of a job, presumably because of the Great Depression. And so he spent the next six months hitch-hiking across the country, covering, by his count, ten-thousand miles and thirty-five states, as well as Manitoba.
The next year, he hitchhiked to Big Trees State Park in Calaveras. He worked there--voluntarily, for cash, for room and board? This is not clear--and so impressed officials that he was named the park's lead ranger in 1934. While there, he wrote A Guide to Calaveras Big Trees, the only copy of which is now at the California State Library in the California History Room.
In 1935, Haas moved to Yellowstone National Forest, where he ran a reforestation nursery--presumably drawing on his earlier experiences--until 1940. His title at the end was "CCC Foreman, National Park Service," which suggests that he was benefiting from New Deal programs and may help explain how he came to be employed at Calaveras Big Tree State Park in the first place.
During this time, he also took up mountain climbing. As Don Herron reconstructs this era in Haas's life, the mountain climbing and exploration was part of Haas's quest for Romantic experiences: he tested his body to its limits (and sometimes beyond), going places no human had been before--or so it was said--once getting drunk on altitude sickness, once witnessing the Specter of Brocken, once discovering a "Shangri-la" in Yellowstone that was so arranged that, Haas imagined, it had never in all of history been touched by the foot of humans and that had not been found again after he and his traveling partner departed.
According to Haas's application for a social security account number, his job at Yellowstone ended two days before Christmas, 1940. By 30 July 1941--when the application was signed--Haas was unemployed and living in Oakland, at 1228 59th Street. Why he moved to the Bay Area is unknown. It was here that he was inducted into the U.S. Navy.
Update: the move to the Bay Area may have been familial. His father, Daniel W. Boyd, died in Alameda in 1944.
The next year, he hitchhiked to Big Trees State Park in Calaveras. He worked there--voluntarily, for cash, for room and board? This is not clear--and so impressed officials that he was named the park's lead ranger in 1934. While there, he wrote A Guide to Calaveras Big Trees, the only copy of which is now at the California State Library in the California History Room.
In 1935, Haas moved to Yellowstone National Forest, where he ran a reforestation nursery--presumably drawing on his earlier experiences--until 1940. His title at the end was "CCC Foreman, National Park Service," which suggests that he was benefiting from New Deal programs and may help explain how he came to be employed at Calaveras Big Tree State Park in the first place.
During this time, he also took up mountain climbing. As Don Herron reconstructs this era in Haas's life, the mountain climbing and exploration was part of Haas's quest for Romantic experiences: he tested his body to its limits (and sometimes beyond), going places no human had been before--or so it was said--once getting drunk on altitude sickness, once witnessing the Specter of Brocken, once discovering a "Shangri-la" in Yellowstone that was so arranged that, Haas imagined, it had never in all of history been touched by the foot of humans and that had not been found again after he and his traveling partner departed.
According to Haas's application for a social security account number, his job at Yellowstone ended two days before Christmas, 1940. By 30 July 1941--when the application was signed--Haas was unemployed and living in Oakland, at 1228 59th Street. Why he moved to the Bay Area is unknown. It was here that he was inducted into the U.S. Navy.
Update: the move to the Bay Area may have been familial. His father, Daniel W. Boyd, died in Alameda in 1944.
