The last Sunday evening in July, the Goths hitched up one last trailer at their Mount Gardner property – gathering up their goats, sheep, chickens, love birds and cockateels, dogs, cats and a lama. They spent that last night at the Union Steamship Company Marina and then left on the 5:20 a.m. ferry, ending a 43-year stint on Bowen Island.
Richard and Linda Goth arrived on Bowen July 1, 1978. They were to spend just a couple of years here and then return to Calgary. Obviously, that didn’t happen.
Early days
Richard grew up in a theatrical family in Alberta. He describes his father as a powerhouse of theatre and entertainment who worked for Shell Oil for 30 years – “That’s what paid the bills and paid for his passion in theatre.”
Where his father would be directing full-cast, full-orchestra productions in the 2,700-seater Jubilee Auditorium, Richard ended up working on the projects and taking on technical roles, which translated into a career in theatre and television, working in lighting and stage management. At one point, Richard was working as regional sales manager for the company that produced the highly specialized lighting dimming and control equipment that was CBC broadcast standard. “When you’ve got that kind of dimming in a studio, it has to be quiet. Not just noise you can hear, but noise in terms of electronic interference.”
Richard started at that company February 2, 1976 – he remembers the date because that’s when he met Linda, a secretary in the department. Friendliness turned to fondness turned to love and the two were married in December that year. (Linda adds that the swift wedding was coordinated with a visit from Richard’s English vaudevillian grandfather – another great entertainer.)
A couple of years later, when CBC was constructing its new Vancouver building, Richard commissioned its lighting system. When the prospect of a job in the Vancouver studio came up, he and Linda moved west. The job wasn’t to start until fall of 1978, so Richard worked some temporary contracts to fill the gap but a federal hiring freeze soon derailed his plans. With the CBC job no longer available, Richard was unemployed.
A chance meeting in town with the woman who’d been renting the couple a place in the Cove set the course of their next 30 years. “She says, ‘Well, I need a driver. I’ve got this little freight truck as a part of our business,'" recounts Richard. “And that got this thing rolling."
Bowen Freight's beginnings
In 1980, for $24,000, the young couple bought a two-bedroom cottage on wooden rounds on a flat quarter acre on Oceanview Road. The plan was to expand it, fix it, sell it and head back to Alberta. (Obviously, that too didn’t happen.)
“We ended up having three babies and starting a freight business and living in that house for 17 years,” says Richard. “We got absorbed.”
The Goths started Bowen Freight in 1984 (there had been a plan to buy their former landlords’ business but that didn’t end up happening) – Richard doing the driving, Linda doing the bookkeeping, accounting, answering phones and doing dispatch. They ran the business for the next 25 years.
“It was a terrific relationship in that regard,” says Richard. “We were a husband and wife and having the babies and all that that was involved there, but we were also business partners.”
“We both worked very hard at that and it was a good thing.”
'An awful lot of roads'
Hauling freight exposed Richard to little-known corners of Bowen and the ebbs and flows of its people. “Somebody once said there’s a contest between me and the phone guy and Santa Claus as to who’d been in more houses on Bowen Island.
“I got to see and meet and get to know this community in a very, very deep, deep way,” he says. From folks camping in their partially constructed homes, as he brought them their windows or doors, to those starting new businesses. “I’ve seen people really try and knock themselves out trying to make something work over here that wasn’t really going and then I’ve seen people start things and they really get taken up.”
After selling Bowen Freight to a couple of the drivers, Richard was tapped to drive the school bus. A year later, Peter King convinced him to start driving for the community shuttle buses, which he continued driving for more than a decade.
“I’ve driven an awful lot of roads on Bowen Island,” says Richard. “And it wasn’t planned that way.”
He was a longtime member of the Legion, which he joined shortly after moving to the island. Back then, there was no liquor agency on Bowen. “It was the only place you could get a beer on Bowen Island without going and buying it in the store in town.”
Along with Andrea McKay, Richard helped launch the island Scouts group and – beyond the usual camping and adventuring – Richard would teach the boys to recite “In Flanders Fields” for the Remembrance Day service. When that dropped off, Richard started taking on the recitations himself and it became a Bowen tradition. “It’s a superb piece of art,” he reflects. “It’s my honour to be able to do that and people tell me they like what they hear.”
Affordability crisis
But as it did for many former and departing islanders, the housing crisis and affordability pushed the Goths into moving. Their children haven’t been able to afford to stay on Bowen and Richard and Linda are getting older (he just turned 70). So, last September, the Goths, their son, who lives with them because of his disability, and their daughter and her partner started looking at real estate around Calgary. The family found a 17-acre property north of the city with a large house they’re all going to share. “It’s absolutely gorgeous,” gushes Richard.
Never shying from opinions
Richard’s Bowen existence hasn’t been a quiet one. “I’ve had my opinions – no question about that,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of people tell me that they really liked my opinions. And I’ve had some people tell me that they don’t, but I don’t like those people."
Moving doesn’t mean Richard is logging off the online community. “Now that I’m no longer driving a public service… [when] you can’t be as vociferous one might want to be in certain situations, well, that’s going to change now.”
Digging into the opinions: the Goths have been on Bowen for nearly half a century – so what’s changed in that time?
“It’s become far more uptight, in a lot of ways,” says Richard. “People did what they wanted to do and nobody really fussed about things.
“It was a much smaller population,” he says. “Everybody knew everybody.
“We’d get together and do Bowfest and there was no going to parks and getting permission or permits or anything like that. We’d just take over the horse field and go and do it.
“Unfortunately, officialdom has really taken over and a lot of people really like to make rules and be in charge of things,” he says. “Rather than just letting people be free with the rational way they want to do things. Because for the most part, people will do the right thing.”
He’s also disappointed about Bowen’s missed opportunities – like manufactured home parks. “Every [B.C.] community you go to, you’re going to find one, two, or three or more manufactured home parks,” he says. “They’re filled with people who are retiring or young families.
“Some of them can be a little on the decrepit side but you also find that there’s a significant number of them that are absolutely gorgeous.
“We have been denied that as an option [on Bowen],” he says. “We have the property, we have the water, we have the ability to do those things. But systemically we have been chasing away the people with the money, who could do those kinds of things. And we’re suffering for that.
“Consequently, for example, my wife and I, we have to leave because our children can’t find a place [on Bowen] that they can afford to live in.
“And that’s not good for our community to chase away your progeny.”
This was a trend Richard would see in the freight business. “I would move them here and then I would come back later on, and I’d pick them up and I’d move them away.”
But when all is said and done, Richard sees their departure as bittersweet. “It’s been a fun time,” he says. “But it’s time to move on.”
That’s not to say he won’t be back: “I’ve got a motorcycle and needs to be ridden.” As well, the Goths’ phone numbers are staying the same.
