BILL DENGLER (aka "Bill Danger")
@ Camp Mishawaka - Summer Camp in Grand Rapids, MN - 2013

"BILL DANGER"
On December 10, 2014

For Mishawaka campers of a certain period, the moniker, “Bill Danger” evokes not terror, but joy. I am not sure who dubbed Bill Dengler, one of the kindest, most gentle men I’ve ever met, “Bill Danger” in honor of the thrilling tube rides he would give, but the name stuck. At some point Bill accepted it- even embraced it- yet had the disposition not to feel like he had to fulfill it.

I was saddened to hear the news of Bill’s all-too-early death. I had seen him last year in Seattle, and we shared a coffee and talked of his returning to Camp in the summer of 2014. He shared little knotted zipper ties with me and our reunion host- complex nautical knots with a trinket attached- a whale, a sailboat, a dagger. Bill’s health prevented him from making the trip back to Camp this summer, but I am not sure any of us knew the seriousness of his illness.

As a retired Park Ranger for the National Park Service, Bill headed up our nature programs. Bill had perhaps the deepest voice I have ever heard, and I took great pleasure in being able to imitate it with some proficiency. So much so that I was able to pull off a phone conversation with Saul Theisen- a devoted basketball player and non-Nature Study fan, that I was Bill. I called to ask him if he would consider serving as the Nature Assistant during his time at Camp. Saul bought it hook, line and sinker. It was hard to say no to such a kind voice and kind man, even when the voice was an imitation.

As deep as Bill’s voice was, he also had an even greater depth of patience, humor and joy. Indeed, not characteristics that fit with the “Bill Danger” legend, but for those who had the pleasure of a tube ride, or a nature hike with Bill know, he was one and the same. A great counselor and friend . Our thoughts and prayers go out to his wife, Sandy, and his family. Thank you for sharing this kind, gentle man with us for the years you did. We are better for having known him.

WOODEN CANOE HERITAGE ASSOCIATION
NORTHWEST CHAPTER
(A non-profit membership organization devoted to preserving, studying, building, restoring, and using wooden and bark canoes, and to disseminating information about canoeing heritage throughout the world.)

Remembering Friends

Bill Dengler (1939--2014)

Bill grew up in Lititz, PA, and met Sandy in 1963,
while both were graduate students at Arizona State
University. Following a degree in Range
Management, he went on to a 34-year career as a
ranger and naturalist in the National Park Service, with time in a number of National Parks, including Acadia, where they purchased their Old Town canoe. Bill had many lifelong interests and skills. He was interested in the northwoods, Hudson's Bay Company and voyageur history, in historic ships of all sizes, in canoeing and wooden canoes, in Indian history and culture, and music. He was a member of the International Guild of Knot-Tyers, and taught popular classes at the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend. He was a volunteer on the Adventuress sailing ship, collected, carved and played Native American wooden flutes, and helped with the northwest Tribal Canoe Journeys. Bill was a founding member of the Northwest Chapter of the WCHA. His expertise, historic knowledge and quiet humor will be missed by all his canoe friends.

Bill Dengler, master craftsman
A Port Townsend resident and member of the International Guild of Knot Tyers, Bill Dengler makes zipper pulls for us using decorative knots.

Tied with a diamond knot (also called a marlinspike lanyard knot) and Portuguese flat sennit (made in 11 steps!), these nautical zipper pulls are "little pieces of perfection" decorated with a good luck charm.

Bill, who is retired after 33 years with the National Park Service, holds an undergraduate degree in zoology and a masters in wildlife biology.

He first met an old-timer at the Seattle Wooden Boat Festival with an open boat "full of knots," and was intrigued.

"There are two kinds of knots - practical and decorative," says Bill. "Pretty knots were developed by sailors with time on their hands fooling around with rope."

Sandy Dengler writes about her marriage to National Park Ranger Bill Dengler:

In the early sixties I was a grad assistant in Dr. Herbert L. Stahnke’s Poisonous Animals Research Lab at Arizona State University. This was heady stuff; the whole second floor of the PARL facility was locked down with tightly controlled access, not a bad idea since we had these rooms full of rattlesnakes, scorpions, and Gila Monsters (my job was mostly milking the scorpions of their venom). A major function of the lab was to determine effective antidotes and contra-indications in the treatment of poisonous bites and stings. Bill was a teaching assistant to Dr. Stahnke and therefore had a key to the PARL sanctum, and the elevator opened right outside my office. We met. Ten weeks later, we married. You realize such whirlwind romances never last, right?

Forty-seven years later, during a visit with my sister in Scottsdale, Bill and I stopped by ASU. The Life Sciences building is still there, but it is now Building A, and there are B, C, and D out there. Any Tom Dick and Harry can walk up through the second-floor sanctum; it’s not limited access anymore, although the secondary hall doors are still there, and people probably wonder why.

When we worked there, terraria in the main floor hallway housed a variety of hot and not-hot reptiles, everything from bull snakes to Mexican beaded lizards. In fact, Dr. Stahnke’s minions (that’s us) often fed them. The terraria are still there, and while we visited, a grad student with a ladder was dropping the food (mostly dead mice) into the enclosures.

Because we were healthy and fully mobile, we decided to take our fiftieth-anniversary cruise on our forty-ninth. Wonderful, wonderful cruise from Lauderdale to Seattle aboard Holland America’s Amsterdam. So for our fiftieth, the kids and grandkids took us over Christmas to a lovely rental on the cusp of Mesa, Arizona, and Tonto National Forest. All ten of us.

And that is pretty much a thumbnail of our marriage. Life has been weird, very often exciting and stimulating, never the way “everybody else” lives, and extremely satisfying. The basics, the good things, the neat things have persisted for over half a century. We were blessed with excellent health, excellent kids, and excellent opportunities, most of which we seized.

And if you ever find yourself in the position of having to milk scorpions, I’ll be happy to show you how it’s done.

BILL DENGLER & Grant Petersen, NPS Ranger roommates at Horace M. Albright Training Center, Grand Canyon NP, in 1965, before Bill was assigned to Joshua Tree NP.

Bill Dengler (back row, 5th from left), assigned to Joshua Tree from here, was a roommate of National Park Rangers Grant A. Petersen (second row, 4th from left--his roommate at GLCA, Al Seidenkranz, 4th from right), assigned to Glen Canyon NRA, and Larry Clark (third row, 6th from left), assigned to Petrified Forest NP, for the Summer 1965 Intake Trainee Program at Horace M. Albright Training Center, Grand Canyon NP.

Seated, HATC Staff: Dave Karakker & Frank Kowski (2nd & 3rd from left); Howard "Howie the Cop" Chapman & Don Jackson (3rd & 2nd from right)