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of the Canadian Minister of Immigration, The Hon. Ellen Fairclough, to
facilitate travel for his mother, sister and Ken.
They landed at the Vancouver International Airport on the morning of
Ken’s 18th birthday—September 1958. He carried in his pocket two letters
of introduction from the Ambassador, the first to a lovely couple in Nile
Creek, and the second to a fishing buddy in the interior of BC at Peterhope
Lake. Both these destinations were to become lifelines for the young man
who would play such an important part in his chosen country of Canada.
~~
As a city, Vancouver was fine, but Ken was impatient to see the rivers
that Monsieur Desjardines had spoken of with such enthusiasm—those
narrow swaths of rapids and dark pools where the freshwater fish leapt. It
was only a matter of weeks after his arrival in Canada that he packed his
letter and a change of clothes into his battered, new-to-him, sports car and
boarded the Blackball Ferry travelling from Burrard Inlet to Nanaimo on
Vancouver Island.
The shadowy forests, lonely vistas and winding, pot-holed roads were
unlike anything he’d experienced in Spain or Portugal. Most breathtaking of
all were the immense logging trucks that barrelled down the middle of the
two-lane road. Multi-sets of wheels raised clouds of dust, almost obscuring
the trailer on which was piled a monster-load of forest giants. The first near
miss by one of these earth-shaking transports left the boy butt-clenched,
shaking with exhilaration, and stalled out on the narrow shoulder of the
gravel road.
In the late fifties, Bowser was not much more than a collection of seaside
cottages and a modest resort or two, but Desjardines’ letter introduced Ken
to a warm and welcoming couple.
Their cottage was just above a point of land where Nile Creek entered
the ocean, and there I saw a sight that has never left me.
The river mouth was literally choked with fish. The pink salmon
were returning to spawn. I’d never seen so many—nor fish of that size.
Amongst the pinks were large numbers of coho. My new friend said
these were the better choice for eating.
Hellenic Canadian Literature 