When did you first come to Bowen?
When I was two years old, in 1954. I moved here, June 2020, from New York, due to the pandemic.
How did you come to be on Bowen?
My grandparents moved here in 1918. At the end of World War One. My grandfather was in the Canadian Army, and he got injured and he came here to recuperate and to heal. He loved the place and decided to buy a little piece of land on the end of Mount Gardner road for the exorbitant fee of $350. And so my mother basically grew up here on Bowen and I would visit the grandparents throughout my life as a child.
Where on Bowen do you live?
At the end of Mount Gardner road, beyond the government dock.
What’s your favourite place on Bowen?
Oh my goodness, there are so many.
The Bowen Gym! It’s such a great service for Bowen Islanders to have access to exercise, rain or shine, sun or night. It’s just a gift to Bowen Island. Brad keeps that thing open for us, through thick and thin.
But in terms of a wild place on Bowen, the Cape is a real favourite and I am working with others to get the remaining 300 acres in the public domain as a park so everyone can continue to enjoy it forever!
What’s something Bowen Islanders have in common?
It’s an interesting almost…contradiction. There’s a kind of fierce independence but a connection to each other and a loyalty or a commitment to the community and to the island. It’s different than New York City, obviously. But there’s this sense of community that’s so evident in everything from the farmers’ market to the shops and the way people take care of each other.
What’s your favourite Bowen fact or story?
That Bowen Island is the same size as Manhattan – 20 square miles – and there are 3,600 people here and maybe five million there.
What do you do for fun these days?
Swimming in the ocean every day and wine tasting.
When you go around Killarney Lake, do you go right or left?
I’ve been doing it since I was about two years old. So I know a little bit about Killarney. I used to run around it – I used to zip off two or three laps with no problem. Now it’s much harder than it used to be. But it depends on what kind of workout I want. If I want to have the work later on, I go left, if I want to have the work in the front end, I go right.
