Ivan Glaim (posting on behalf of Alphonse Gagnon)
Some memories that Alphonse has of Ivan are as follows:
When Alphonse was a kid he was at Jessie Alec's with his parents. Ivan had a real passion for falling trees and he told someone to put a beer bottle quite a ways away from the trees. He then proceeded to fall a tree right on that bottle, smashing it. That's how proud he was of his skill and profession.
Ivan was bucking along with our boy, Sean at Nilkitwa. He told Sean that it's easy, all you do is " go up and down, up and down Charlie Brown". What he meant was to limb the tree up on both sides, go down the next tree and repeat until the whole landing was done. Then they would top, measure and buck it to that length. They were doing 16 loads a day. Sean also learned how to file a saw from Ivan, who was a good teacher.
When our logging operation was working at Willow Creek (near Iskut). Some hunters from Smithers shot a moose and Alphonse asked them about the internal organs. They didn't use them so he got the nose, heart, liver, tripe and tongue. The crew were working on separate parts of the block and they got a kick out of the moose going by with no nose. Alphonse cooked up the tripe and when Ivan came in for supper he asked "so what we having for supper, bum guts?" He ate with the crew and loved it.
Alphonse has a lot of fond memories of Ivan as he knew him since he was a kid. Ivan and Joyce were really good friends of my parents.
We would like to be there for the funeral however, I am having surgery in Victoria this Wednesday. Our sincerest condolences to your family.
Alphonse & Lucy Gagnon