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McMASTER, Denis John Andrew

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McMASTER, Denis John Andrew

Denis John Andrew McMaster
June 14, 1928 – December 10, 2018

Denis McMaster passed away on December 10, 2018 in Victoria, B.C. Special thanks for the loving care Dad received from Dr. Ron Reznick in Salt Spring and Dr. David Brook and the caring staff at Craigdarroch Care Home in Victoria.

Denis was predeceased by his second wife, Sheila; his two sisters, Herma Clerke and Enid Hannon and his parents Emma and David McMaster. He will be lovingly remembered by his daughters Janet McMaster (Tom), and Sue McMaster; step-children Kirby Burnett, Norah Burnett, Clarke Burnett (Sandy) and grandchildren Colleen Townley, Taylor Murch (Spencer), Carter Burnett and Ziggy Burnett. He will also be missed by his nephew Mike Clerke (Judy) and their family.

Denis grew up in Vernon and lived his early working life in Vancouver and Calgary, but called Salt Spring home for nearly forty years. He was an active member of the Salt Spring Island Golf and Country Club and the Salt Spring Tennis Association and was very proud to be an honourary life-time member of both organizations. He was instrumental in getting the original tennis bubble built.

In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation in Denis’s name to the Lady Minto Hospital Foundation. He will be laid to rest in Vernon, B.C. where a family graveside service will be held. On-line condolences can be sent to:https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/victoria-bc/denis-mcmaster-8086221 .

BEITEL, Albert (Bert) M.

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BEITEL, Albert (Bert) M.

Albert (Bert) M. Beitel
July 5 1945 – December 11 2018

Bert peacefully went to be with the Lord on the evening of December 11, 2018.

Bert was born July 5th, 1945 in Penticton, BC, the eldest of six children born to Albert and Theresa Beitel. He grew up in Rutland in the Okanagan, graduating from grade 13 in Kelowna and started a summer job for the CIBC which lasted 35 years. His first transfer was to Revelstoke followed by terms in Prince Rupert, Victoria, Courtenay, Penticton, Ocean Falls and finally twenty years of service in Ganges.  Bert met the love of his life, Patricia, in the spring of 1970 in Victoria.  They were married in December of the same year and in the following years had three children.

Bert was transferred to Salt Spring Island in March 1978 and spent twenty years as the branch manager in Ganges, retiring in December 1998.  He was an active community member and was often seen volunteering as a cook for community events such as the Soup’s On program at the Anglican church, Thrifty Foods Fundraisers, Pancake Breakfasts at Our Lady of Grace, the lunch program at St. Vincent De Paul -Ozanam Centre in Victoria or the Tony Head Memorial Slow Pitch Tournament on Salt Spring. He also served as a Trustee for School District 64 and was a member of the local Rotary and Lions Clubs.

Predeceased by his mother and father, Albert and Theresa Beitel, he will be lovingly remembered by his wife Pat, their children, Jenny Sequeira (Dwayne), Michelle Mullin (Rich) and Dean Beitel. Grandchildren Danielle Head (Eric Taylor) Sophia Mullin, Danika Mullin, Gabriel and Marisa Sequeira, and Great-Grand Daughter Addison Taylor.  He also leaves his brothers, Rick, Larry and Terry, his sisters, Lorraine and Gail and their families.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the BC Renal Agency, or the local food bank on Salt Spring Island (Island Community Services). Many thanks and appreciation to all those who cared for Bert, including the nursing staff at Lady Minto, the home care nurses on Salt Spring, Dr. Stigant at the Kidney Clinic in Victoria, Dr. Crichton on Salt Spring and the many other health care professionals that Bert encountered over the years.

The Family would also like to extend a huge thanks to all of those who were able to attend Bert’ s Farewell party a few weeks ago. He was truly fortunate to be a part of such a supportive and caring community.

Funeral mass will be held at Our Lady of Grace Church, 135 Drake Rd. on Salt Spring Island, BC at 11am on Saturday December 22, 2018. Reception to follow at The Royal Canadian Legion, 120 Blain Road.

Viewpoint: Safe road use encouraged for all

Contributed Article
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Viewpoint: Safe road use encouraged for all

By HAZEL GARDNER

This is in response to the Dec. 5 front-page article regarding the pedestrian that was hit crossing Rainbow Road at the junction of Lower Ganges Road.

So often in these pedestrian-vehicle accidents the driver of the vehicle is deemed to be in the wrong, but are pedestrians ever aware of how difficult it can be for the driver to stop in sometimes difficult situations that could be dangerous for others if one allows a lone pedestrian to amble across in front of you?

There seems to be a huge lack of respect for drivers in this part of the world. People just step out into the road oblivious of cars and trucks, deeming that they are pedestrians and therefore have the right of way on the road. OK, so a crosswalk is a safe place to cross, but only if you have first stopped at the curb and looked to your left and right to make sure that nothing is coming in either direction …. and then if there is a car, make eye contact with the driver to be assured he has seen you, and how about a nod or wave of gratitude?

The crosswalk from the school is a nightmare. Kids just amble out into the road without a sideways glance, and certainly not an acknowledgement. Where I lived before coming to Canada, children were taught the “Green Cross Code” of STOP LOOK AND LISTEN. It’s so simple, so sensible and of course I’m teaching that to my grandchildren and hope it might just catch on here!

But back to the bottom of Rainbow Road and the accident that occurred on Nov. 28. I’m sorry that lady was hurt. However, she must have noticed the truck that she describes as big and white, so maybe she should have made eye contact with the driver before assuming he had seen her. Trying to turn left or right at the bottom of Rainbow in a car Safe road use encouraged

is a nightmare, with trying to gau

ge the speed of the cars coming up and down Lower Ganges Road and, added to that, people stepping out just as you, the driver, see a lull in the traffic that will enable you to get your car moving out of the traffic jam that so often occurs there.

Added to that is the crosswalk! Just as you are about to turn right towards town, having checked the traffic to your left, folks press that button and step right out as if that wee flashing light makes them impervious to pain and maybe even death. Think, pedestrians: Stop, look and listen!

Oh, and a nifty trick for pedestrians who must cross a road where there is no crosswalk: cross behind the first car in the line-up of traffic. That way it enables the driver of car #1 to move and go when the opportunity arises and lets the driver of car #2 see you while he is waiting in the line, and make eye contact with a nod, a smile or a wave.

Well, here’s to safer road use for all this Christmas . . . and on and on into 2019 and beyond.

The writer is a Pallot Way resident.

Editorial: Giving season

Driftwood Staff
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Editorial: Giving season

Salt Spring Islanders are a generous lot, as illustrated by the many stories of community contributions published in our paper each year.

The Salt Spring Foundation’s biannual grant disbursement report published this week underscores both how generous islanders are in supporting the foundation in the first place, and how important the foundation is to local charities. The most recent grants, totalling more than $85,000, will help projects as diverse as creation of a rainwater capture system at the new Meadowlane seniors residence to an updated sound system for Mahon Hall to a spring break craft program for kids at the library.

As of one year ago, the foundation’s Community Endowment Fund held $7.2 million. In 2017 it received $432,138 in donations and bequests and disbursed $237,000 to enhance the work of not-for-profit community groups on Salt Spring.

Similarly, the Lady Minto Hospital Foundation recently reported that it has $6 million in accumulated funds and is committed to contributing in a major way to a new emergency room at the hospital. Two of its fundraisers — the Phantom Ball, which began 22 years ago, and the charity golf tournament, initiated in 1991 — have between them brought in almost $1.6 million over the years. Islanders continue to provide solid support for the island’s much appreciated hospital facilities in donations and bequests.

Contributing to worthwhile causes not only feels good, but Canadian income tax laws are a decent incentive to donate, especially if one’s total donations exceed $200 in a reporting period. With less than two weeks left in 2018, now is the time for people to make those last-minute donations to organizations that can issue tax receipts. Remember too that donation amounts can be carried over for five years.

As the Salt Spring Foundation and Lady Minto Hospital Foundation so clearly demonstrate when they report to the community on the groups and projects they benefit, a little money can go a long way to make a big difference in the lives of our friends, neighbours and family members.

THREADKELL BA, MNRM, Brian Robert

Driftwood Obituary
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Brian Robert Threadkell BA, MNRM
July 29, 1954 – December 15, 2018

Brian marched (quickly) to the beat of his own drum. Born in Teuton, MB to Marjorie Jean (Mader) and Rowland Threadkell, he grew up in Winnipeg. At 17 he ran away from home to work for the Hudson’s Bay Co. on the reserve at Brochette in northern MB. When he realized that he’d do better with an education he returned to school – but not always to classes because he was making so much money moving pianos. One summer he solo backpacked from Banff to Jasper with his dog. After university he graded fur until he became allergic to lynx. Returning to the north, he worked in natural resource management in what is now Nunavut, developing commercial fishing and hunting strategies. He met his wife, Ida Marie Friesen, at the fish plant in Rankin Inlet. They made their first home in Winnipeg where he started his consulting business which focussed on implementing the Manitoba Northern Flood Agreement. He especially enjoyed working with the people of Nelson House First Nation and his favourite project was the development of a wilderness camp to teach traditional skills. He was always bringing visiting northerners home for dinner or the weekend. When he moved to Salt Spring in 1990 the commute just got longer but the northerners still visited. His last project was turning a cull into a commercial caribou harvest which employed almost all the hunters in Coral Harbour, NT. This came to an end when the herd went out onto an ice shelf which broke off and floated out into Hudson’s Bay.

Brian could fix anything and he did so with a minimum of tools. With only a jigsaw he redid our entire house. He loved training his dogs and his daily hikes up and down Mt Erskine and Mt Maxwell. He loved playing the trumpet and the flute and stripping down his computer to make it do what he wanted. Perseverance, efficiency and the ability to quickly analyst systems and all things mechanical made him a gifted problem solver but not exactly a glad sufferer of fools.

He is survived by his wife, Ida Marie, his dog, Sophie, sister Janet (Doug), niece Heather (Bonnie) and nephew Graham (Deanna).

Safely home.
Memorial service to be held at All Saints Anglican Church at 2:00pm on Tuesday January 15, 2019.

Harbour walk committee considers next step

Gail Sjuberg
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Harbour walk committee considers next step

If man can go to the moon, Salt Spring Islanders can complete the Ganges boardwalk project.

That was the inspiring image Ganges Harbour Walk Steering Committee chair Matt Steffich used to open a committee meeting on Friday morning.

He quoted President John F. Kennedy, who stated in 1961 that his country would send a man to the moon and return him safely “not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.” Steffich said he remembers that every day when he works on the project.

“I keep that in the front of my mind and it drives me forward . . . I believe we are a lot closer to finishing this project than we think,” he said.

Friday’s meeting was the first held by the committee, which operates under the CRD’s Parks and Recreation Commission, since February. It was waiting for four technical project studies to be completed and CRD staff to have time to create an accompanying report and recommendations.

Committee members were pleased with the study results, which assessed the existing structures, plus geotechnical, ecological and archeological issues that would need to be addressed. 

“There is no deal breaker in this report,” said Steffich.

The group then discussed how to proceed. Committee members represent PARC, the Salt Spring Transportation Commission, Harbour Authority of Salt Spring, Salt Spring Chamber of Commerce and the Salt Spring Local Trust Committee. John Woodward, a member of the Farmers’ Institute, which owns a sliver of property on the harbour walk route and served on the original boardwalk/seawalk committee in the 1980s, made a presentation that urged continued work on achieving the vision.

A CRD staff report had suggested that the project “be held in abeyance until the foreshore right-of-way acquisition is determined” and that the committee “recommend to the Islands Trust to pursue continued engagement with the upland foreshore owners and community to develop the vision and community planning goals, objectives, and policies for the harbour area.”

“I just don’t like this word ‘abeyance,”” said trustee Peter Grove, representing the Islands Trust. “It sounds like grinding everything to a halt.”

CRD senior manager Karla Campbell said that was not the case, but stressed it was important for committee members to first engage in discussions with the four upland property owners in the area.

For more on this story, see the Dec. 12, 2018 issue of the Gulf Islands Driftwood newspaper, or subscribe online.

Trust hit with anti-logging petition

Elizabeth Nolan
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Trust hit with anti-logging petition

Island residents turned out en masse Thursday for the first public meeting of the Salt Spring Local Trust Committee’s new four-year term, with many there to protest commercial logging and shellfish operations.

LTC chair Peter Luckham noted a number of items of correspondence had been received about proposed shellfish aquaculture at Booth Bay as Penelakut Seafoods’ foreshore tenure licence is currently being reviewed by the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. Luckham said the LTC shares the community’s concerns about the proposed use of plastic predator netting, but the company has not yet submitted a rezoning application, which would be required to make aquaculture lawful.

Even more correspondence was received regarding the clear-cut logging of a 45-acre parcel on Beddis Road, which also inspired protesters with signs to demand a stop work order during the town hall session of the meeting. Trustees and staff maintain the Islands Trust has no ability to stop the work or otherwise intervene with its available tools, except on a portion of the land covered by a development permit area.

“With regard to this one, there is nothing we can do,” trustee Peter Grove said at the meeting. “However, with regard to the future there are things we can do.”

Those who spoke against the logging operation and continued loss of the Coastal Douglas-fir ecosystem included four children from the Stowel Lake nature school and their teacher, naturalist and activist Briony Penn.

Penn stated that sensitive ecosystem mapping on Salt Spring was done decades ago but has yet to be implemented as conservation action.

“We’ve been waiting for 25 years to have these sensitive ecosystems protected. Nothing has happened, and we can’t keep waiting — that’s a generation,” Penn said. “These kids have not been served well by our political process, because we keep getting punched back by the development lobby. It’s time that we start protecting these sensitive ecosystems.”

Peter McAllister, whose Sky Valley Road property backs onto the Beddis Road site, presented a letter on behalf of many concerned neighbours and islanders. Around 300 people have signed on to date.

For more on this story, see the Dec. 12, 2018 issue of the Gulf Islands Driftwood newspaper, or subscribe online.

Peter McAllister and Bernadette Mertens-McAllister hold signs at Thursday’s Salt Spring Local Trust Committee meeting to protest logging of a Beddis Road parcel that is close to their Sky Valley Road property.   

GRANGER, Isabelle Alix

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GRANGER, Isabelle Alix

Isabelle Alix Granger

Isabelle Alix Granger passed away peacefully at Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver, BC on the evening of December 11. She is survived by her loving daughter Lisa (Ian Cunliffe), sister Patricia Keating, grandchildren Dylan and Jamie, nephews Jamie and Rob Keating and niece Gigi Hamer, many close friends and a wonderful extended family. She led a rich and full life and will be sorely missed. For further information and memorial service details please visit: www.mckenziefuneralservice.com/obits

GOSSEN, Thomas Gerald

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GOSSEN, Thomas Gerald

Thomas Gerald Gossen
10 December 2018

Thomas Gerald Gossen, born 1934, Saskatoon, Canada Tom is an explorer of life. Borne of Northern Saskatchewan, the frontier was his doorstep as a young man. He is very good with numbers and accounting was an art form to him. He led a long and successful career consulting in financial matters to small businesses, farmers, and governments in developing regions of Canada and Africa. He is an outdoorsman. He has many good stories of times in the bush of northern Saskatchewan, the arctic territories and remote parts of east Africa. He honed very fine skills as a bush pilot in northern Canada in the 50’s and 60’s and can fly anything. Proudly, he has crashed landed planes in the high arctic, and emergency landed in the sands of the Sahara, but still he loves graceful swooping loops in the silence of a glider. He turned his attentions later to sailing, but he can also ski, scuba dive, water ski, and surf. But all that remains of these pursuits is his trustworthy Grumman aluminum canoe!
He is a lover of the arts. He enjoyed the camaraderie of many great western Canadian artists in the 60’s and 70’s. He is also an accomplished piano player, able to make small children dance crazily to his ragtime recitals, and is not too bad at drawing and painting either. His homes were wonderfully decorated with works of art and designed sometimes by his own hand. These activities demonstrated a mind actively seeking the mysteries of life and the advancement of a global society. Tom dedicated much of his life to serving others through his skills and compassion. He provided valuable community services in Saskatoon and the surrounding native communities, and to the Inuit communities of Inuvik and the Northwest Territories, and his engrossing literacy program called UPLIFT that he co-founded in Uganda, which has helped thousands of impoverished people read, and it still operates today. Tom is follower of Baha’ú’llah and is a member of the Baha’i community. Tom’s faith continues to deepen and shape his life in this world and he will happily pray, meditate, or consult with you along your spiritual journey. Tom had one younger brother, Bill, who passed several years ago. Tom has four children, Rhonda, Andrea, Lisa and David and is loving husband to Sylvia. He has three grandchildren and two great grandchildren. He is highly adored by his family, and has had a powerful influence on their lives.

The family would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all the Greenwoods staff for their loving care. In lieu of flowers, donations to the Greenwoods Foundation.

EVANS, Gillian (Jill) Leslie (Nee MURRAY)

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EVANS, Gillian (Jill) Leslie (Nee MURRAY)

Gillian Leslie, (Jill) Evans nee Murray

Jill passed away peacefully on November 14th, 2018 at The Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria. She spent her last hours in the company of her loving family, reminiscing, sharing thoughts, and joking. She was her inimitable self until the end.

She had led an extraordinary life: a British Subject, born in China, who lived in Shanghai, England, New York, and finally Canada. All who knew her admired her intellect, gracious humour, and generosity of spirit. She was a devoted mother, a talented artist and writer, a breeder of Great Danes and a renowned historian of that breed. She had friends from all over the globe with whom she communicated extensively via social media. She loved her life on Saltspring Island and the many people she knew and cherished there. She volunteered at the library and was an avid bridge player who wrote a column on bridge for The Driftwood. Her unique soul will be sorely missed, and not soon forgotten.

She is survived by her son David, her daughter-in-law Gai, and her grandchildren, Taylor (Chelsea Rooney) and Lois (Parker Reid).

Thanks to Dr. Reznick, and the staff at the Lady Minto Hospital, and The Doctors and staff at the Royal Jubilee Hospital, who took such good care of her.

A Celebration of Life service is planned for 3:00 pm on January 5th, 2019 at the Lion’s Hall in Ganges.

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