columbiabrigade
columbiabrigade
| Forum role | Member since | Last activity | Topics created | Replies created |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Member | May 29, 2011 (15 years) |
- | 1 | 1 |
- Forum role
- Member
- Member since
May 29, 2011 (15 years)
- Last activity
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- Topics created
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Bio
I was born in Lillooet, BC, in a house that my father built out of railway ties. My parents were teachers and it seems we moved around a lot - Lillooet to Vancouver to Victoria, Vancouver, Terrace, Victoria and finally Kelowna in 1968 where I finished school at Dr. Knox High School. My parents were always adventurous types, and while my Mom is still alive to read this blog, my Dad passed away a few years ago. I think he would approve.
I have three brothers (Jim, Al, and Drew) and two sisters (Cheryl and Judy), four kids (Roz, Mark, Meg, Ian), a nephew who is like my fifth kid (Jeff), a wife (Lorna), a step daughter (Vanessa and husband Mike) and our four grandchildren (Olivia, Jack, Elliot, and Sophia). I worked for about twelve years before I went to university to complete a BA and MA in Historical Geography under the tutelage of the one and only Dr. Cole Harris.
For more than thirty years I worked in Museums, the bulk of that for the Kelowna Museums Society in a variety of roles beginning as the Exhibitions Coordinator and finishing with a twelve year stint as the Society's Executive Director. There was a lot of other work before I landed in the museum business however - truck driver, scaler's helper for Columbia Cellulose, cowboy in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, singer in bars and lounges, purchasing agent, hot tar roofer, general maintenance man, college professor and lots of others. I learned something from all that work, but I got the most satisfaction in the museum....more properly from the wonderful characters I met through the museum work.
These canoe expeditions (the Columbia River in 2011) began with a challenge from one of the Museum's board members, Bob Groves. 'Take your holidays and paddle with us Wilson. You'll love it.'
I did!
For six weeks (June 1 - July 15, 2011) about 200 of us paddled from Invermere down the Kootenay, Clark Fork, Pend Orielle, and Columbia Rivers to Fort Astoria to commemorate David Thompson's mapping of the territory 200 years earlier.
Next was a paddle of 1500km down Canada's longest river - a river that was mapped 225 years earlier by Alexander MacKenzie.
The inspiration - how many can say they've paddled the length of the MacKenzie River in Canada's great Arctic wilderness....I'll probably never get a chance to see this countryside if I don't take the opportunity now.....there are those who say I can't do it....I want to inspire my kids....prove to myself that I can do it.
In all of this time I've wanted to 'do' things. Good things. Worthy things. I've wanted to stay out of the way of idiots', not make trouble for others, say 'I love you' to those I have and do, pay it forward, be strong when its needed, help. At the end when someone asks me, 'What did you do?', I can actually give them a list.
So the MacKenzie River - Dehcho Expedition 2014 isn't on my 'bucket list' - but I did want it to be on my life-list. :-)
This year's paddle (2017 - Canada's 150th Anniversary) is an cross-Canada journey beginning in Fort Saint James in early June and finishing July 1st with an arrival in Ottawa!
for more information contact:
k.wayne.wilson@gmail.com
www.wwilsonart.com
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