Volunteers at (wood) work

“Yeah, we’ll water trees,” John Emerson told Harrington Beach State Park staff last summer.

He and his wife Cathy didn’t know exactly what they were getting into when the retired Grafton couple volunteered to provide newly planted vegetation with a much-needed drink in the Town of Belgium’s natural jewel.

One hundred trees were planted on Earth Day last spring, and they were in danger of not making it through the drought.

The process to save them, John explained, involved filling five-gallon pails with a hose and transporting them in the bed of a pickup truck across the park, walking through scrub brush to the trees. They later found 30-gallon buckets, which reduced the number of refilling trips.

“Fortunately, it was so dry you could drive the truck to get to the trees,” Cathy said.

Instead of going back with the truck to get more water, the couple once tried to fill a bucket with a hand-operated water pump in the park.

“Do you know how many pumps it takes to fill a five-gallon bucket?” John asked. “Clearly, we did not.”

When they were out of water and had one tree left, they tried to fill their bucket with lake water.

“That was a Marx Brothers routine,” John laughed as he awkwardly shuffled along to demonstrate the process.

John found an easier way. One of the camp hosts at the park had a pump that could throw water 30 feet. He and Cathy ditched the five-gallon pails and stood from a distance and watered trees with a garden hose.

Despite the challenging work, the Emersons have become two of the park’s most dedicated volunteers, and their efforts so valuable to the park that they were chosen for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Volunteers of the Year award

“It was a shock,” Cathy said. “We didn’t even know how we got nominated,” Nominations were submitted by the DNR’s Parks and Recreation Management department staff. Portions of the Emersons’ nomination read, “When the staff reaches out for help, no matter what the task, John and Cathy show up to help in any way they can. We are thankful for volunteers like John and Cathy, who help piece together the gaps that would otherwise go unfilled. This couple is what all properties hope for in volunteers. They are some of our hardest working members.”

Cathy said she was “humbled” by the honor. “We would have done it anyway,” she said of volunteering.

“It was nice recognition,” John said.

The Emersons haul brush and logs through swamp waters, split wood to keep the shed full for campers, have led programs when the park was short on volunteer naturalists and help set up the park’s annual Fall Hike..

They often work with the Friends of Harrington Beach State Park.

“Their contributions are especially valuable with the current very minimal DNR staff,” the group’s secretary Elaine Stecker-Kochanski said.

The Emersons have been savoring the park’s scenes for years and upgraded their status from patrons to volunteers by accident a couple of years ago. The Mammoth Hike Challenge had the retired couple walking 42 miles, partly through their favorite state park.

“We stopped in the office one day because they have the best bathrooms,” John said.

Chief Ranger Samantha Ortlieb told the couple about opportunities to volunteer. The Emersons applied and were approved.

“She told us there’s always wood to be split,” Cathy said.

Lately, the pair has been cutting dead ash trees and adding logs to a brush pile. John had to take a one-day chainsaw certification class.

He remembers using a circular saw to chop wood with his father.

“I guess this is full circle for me,” he laughed.

Cathy helps move the logs.

The couple has tried to recruit others to help.

“When we walk the trails we’re sort of like the ambassadors,” Cathy said.

“Don’t feel left out. Grab a bucket,” John tells park patrons.

John, 70, is a former firefighter from Milwaukee who has camped his entire life.

Cathy, 73, grew up on a farm in Denmark, Wis., and didn’t try camping until she met her husband of 48 years.

John brought two old surplus mummy bags from the Army for sleeping bags.

“The first time I went I thought I would never go again,” Cathy said.

She soon came to love the outdoors. The Emersons have visited national parks, and Cathy loved Harrington Beach State Park’s flat trails when she was recovering from knee surgery.

The peace the park brings is a big draw.

“There’s no screens, no TV. I think it’s great to be outside,” Cathy said.

John said, “The rest of the world seems to go away.”

But the Emersons won’t leave.

“You keep moving. If you stop moving, you stop,” John said.

“We’ll keep doing it until we can’t,” Cathy said.

For more information on becoming a state park volunteer, visit https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/parks/volunteer. For Harrington Beach State Park, visit friendsofharrington.org/volunteer.