Bill Risken shared love of outdoors with family

In many ways William “Bill” Risken was a man born after his time. He loved disappearing into the wilderness for days or weeks on end, sometimes by himself or with his wife and a pack horse. A crackling campfire was his melody and the backcountry forest his muse.

Risken died May 11 after struggling with lung cancer for two years. He was 77.

He was born in Chile because his father had worked as an accountant for a copper mine in Butte, and during the Depression Chile was where the work was. After a brief stint in New Jersey, the family returned to Montana when Risken was 12.

His work ethic was strong, matched only by his taste for adventure. During World War II there was a shortage of men to staff the fire-lookout towers. After he turned 16 he worked in a tower all summer. “He wouldn’t see another human being until right before school started,” said his daughter, Lori Ulmer.

During high school, he was the Montana Golden Gloves boxing champion, though he never set out to be a boxer. “He went out for basketball and ended up decking someone, so they sent him to the boxing coach,” Ulmer said.

When he was 17, he lied about his age to join the Marines. “He was a scout in the Marines on the Aleutian Islands,” said his grandson, Clint Risken. “He’d go out ahead of the platoon to see where the Japanese were. He’d sneak around and get information.”

Risken served a little more than two years before the war ended. “He was on his way to invade Japan,” Ulmer said. “He was on the boat.”

Risken went to college on the GI Bill. Each summer he worked as a smoke jumper in Montana to pay the bills. He was a rarity, trained as both a journeyman electrician and a lineman. In the early 1950s he met Elaine Mason. They dated for two and a half years before marrying in August 1954. “When we were introduced, he didn’t say anything,” she said. “I said, ‘Call me,’ and he did.”

Ulmer said her father later told her that he didn’t speak because he was in awe of Elaine. “He didn’t know what to say, which was so unlike him,” Ulmer said.

The couple often went camping and would often use a pack train to stay in the wilderness for long periods. When Lori and her brother Randy arrived, he sold the horses and bought a boat. The family moved to Spokane in 1963 for Risken’s job with the Bonneville Power Association. They moved to an isolated ridge above Liberty Lake in 1970.

“Anybody who came up the hill was lost, coming to visit us or bringing the mail,” his wife said.

The isolation was perfect for Risken. Many family photographs feature him posing next to fish he’d caught or birds and other animals that he’d hunted. For about a decade he led a Boy Scout troop at Opportunity Elementary School, teaching the boys everything he knew about the outdoors.

His grandson was also on the receiving end of his graduate course in the outdoors. Clint Risken spent every summer with his grandfather while he was growing up. “He was more of a friend than a grandfather, somebody who was always there if you needed anything,” he said. “It seemed like he knew just about anything. If you had a question, he had an answer for it.”

No one else came along on those trips, whether they were hunting, fishing or water skiing on Lake Roosevelt. “He’d come pick me up after school and we’d take off and go bird hunting,” his grandson said. “That was always a lot of fun.”

Risken made such an impression on his grandson that he decided to go into the family business and is now an apprentice lineman. “He never pushed me into it,” Clint Risken said. “He just always talked about how much he liked it. I think a lot of it was just looking up to him.”

Risken worked for Inland Power and Light and as the head of the maintenance department for the Central Valley School District before retiring from Vera Water and Power in the early 1990s. He found plenty of ways to fill his time after he punched the clock for the last time. “He just hunted and fished more,” his wife said.

Through it all Risken never lost his drive. He went hang gliding when he was 65. For his 75th birthday he went on a hunting trip to Montana and shot a buffalo. “He was fearless,” his wife said. “He liked a challenge.”

He was also a bit competitive, whether it was about catching the biggest fish or telling the best tale. “He had a lot of stories,” his grandson said. “He never really ran out. If somebody had a story, he had a better one.”

Risken got sick four years ago when he was diagnosed with colon cancer. It went into remission, but he was diagnosed with lung cancer two years ago. Last year he was well enough to attend his 50th anniversary bash at the Rockin’ B Ranch on Idaho Road, a fitting location for a man born after his time.