I am entering some scattered notes that I was going to transcribe sometime and that is now………………….

Day’s Inn

809 Island Highway South

Nanaimo, B.C. (250) 754 8171

Saturday, November 14, 2015 1000 hours

I am sitting comfortably on a chesterfield in the lobby of this quaint motel on the Southern entrance to Nanaimo. Marilyn is washing clothes with Leah while Allan and I take separate breaks with our thoughts.

This impromptu holiday was not really a plan for Marilyn and I but events came together so that it appeared that linking them together made sense and less travel.

We started with Whatshan on Thursday, November 05, 2010, at the beginning of a Fall Work Party that eventually involved about 35 people at its peak. Many “dangerous trees” were identified as potential “wind fall” in high winds. Most were birches with dying tops. These trees became the object of “bucking” into firewood, splitting and piling in the eight cabin wood stoves, fireplace in the Retreat and the odd blocks for the major campfire pit near the Retreat.

Rick Hlookoff’s Logging Company came with his professional Faller, Scott and some sixty (60) trees were fallen. Not all could be processed and more than half would need to wait till the Spring Work Party. It is unbelievable at the “work ethic” of these volunteers as the rain did nothing to slow down the enthusiasm.

Tree debris was burned while two separate mechanical wood splitters and their crews tried to keep up with assembling the wood bolts from all over the level plain West of the Retreat.

Marilyn and I left early Sunday along with Kyle and Tamara, to travel to Victoria in preparation for Royal Roads University November 19, 2015.

This indeed was going to be a monumental occasion as our daughter Tamara overcame so many challenges in her life to now earn a Masters Degree in Leadership. This included challenging the fact that she did not have an undergraduate degree and meeting the entrance requirements anyway.

This of course was achieved while she was raising three (3) young sons and working full time. We need to add the fact that Tamara was a normal teenager who managed to become very much a Youth with many temptations that she had to overcome on her path to become a Youth Drug and Alcohol Counsellor with Freedom Quest and Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce. She has already positively influenced the lives of many.

Being present and witnessing her receipt of the Masters Diploma brought tears to my eyes and I thought about the scholarship offer from the University of Saskatchewan for me to study Sanitary Engineering. Perhaps I too, could have been able to add an MEng to my credentials.

Someone in my family made it and according to the noted Cell Biologist, Dr Lipton, you might say that I achieved this though the cells of my daughter. Congratulations, Tamara.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015, Marilyn and I left Tamara, Kyle and their sons to travel North to Nanaimo to visit Marilyn’s brother Allan and his wife Leah would had just moved from Whitehorse YT. We wanted to see them as they settled in their RV on a campground with a beautiful view of the Strait.

Reminiscences of times in Langham, Saskatchewan and all the people that Marilyn and Allan knew took a lot of time. We still managed to travel to Coombs to see the “Goats on the Roof”. The Coombs area is very “touristy” and well worth the short trip from Nanaimo.

Transcribed from notes June 14, 2017 1530 hours by EWV