Sometimes you get lucky in life and have a neighbour who turns out to be the sort of person some might call a ‘community builder’ the kind of person who knows where the best bay is for a floathouse, and how to tie it up, and then brings you a couple of ‘spare’ boomsticks that were ‘just lyin’ around’.
Or they show up to invite you and your family to help out at the nearby salmon enhancement hatchery where his efforts of forty years have attracted hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations, community volunteer effort, education and expertise, even bureaucratic approval. This work has been crucial in the prevention of complete collapse, and struggling recovery of many small salmon runs in this area.
You get a neighbour who subdivides his property into smaller affordable lots so those who want to get landed - so to speak - can purchase a chunk, and then he helps you build a house on it. Over the years you learn you can radio that neighbour at 3:30 am to take your husband to the hospital, (a 3.5 hour trip across Queen Charlotte Strait in his fishing boat) and he says, ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes’.
That’s the kind of neighbour my family and I got to know over the 40 years we’ve lived on Gilford Island near Billy Proctor. As the years went by, he built a museum to display his wide-ranging collection of domestic and professional items and artifacts, which reflects his insatiable interest in the people, history, geography, wildlife, fish, flowers and weather of his home territory, the Broughton Archipelago. Quickly he added on a Gift Shop to feature local artist’s and authors books and artworks, then added a pond, a replica hand loggers shack and a mini-schoolhouse full of salvaged items from Echo Bay School, demolished on his 80th birthday.
During the nineties, I deck-handed with him over eight seasons, fishing for salmon, ling cod and one brief tuna trip. While I was learning how to fish, during the long hours running to the fishing grounds I was teaching Billy something he did not know how to do well - how to write. He became one of those ‘local authors’ himself and our first collaboration “Full Moon Flood Tide” was nominated for the Bill Duthie Booksellers Choice Award; an honour that surprised the publisher as well as us.
Billy is not a person who thinks of himself as ‘award-worthy’ so he was incredulous when I told him Bill Noon from the BC Maritime Museum had contacted me (early November 2024) to inform me that he had been nominated for the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Maritime Achievement. Billy was subsequently one of the six nominees chosen to receive the award. Anya Zanko of the Maritime Museum assured me Noon and the board members and dozens of the fishers who know Billy all felt strongly that his contribution needed to be acknowledged and honoured.
Billy, myself and husband Albert, Proctor’s allotted two guests, were invited to the awards ceremony at the Government House in Victoria on Nov. 26, 2024. Unfortunately, he was unable to go, but two other friends who live south island could and did.
Prominent in the BC boating, SARS and research community, Dr. John Harper and Mary Morris, known for their work bringing to light the significance of Indigenous clam gardens in the Broughton Archipelago, attended for him. John, wearing a special silk tie decorated with anchors in honour of Billy, accepted the award from the Honourable Janet Austin, outgoing Lieutenant Governor of BC. Subsequently he and Mary packaged and shipped the plaque, a unique medallion designed by artist Nusi Ian Reid, a member of the Heiltsuk Nation in Bella Bella, to me to take to Billy. Sometime next year in a flotilla of boats, members of the Maritime Museum plan to voyage to Billy’s Museum to honour his contribution personally.
This award was originally conceived in 2012 as the Beaver Medal by Jamie Webb, Past President of the Maritime Museum. In 2023 the museum formed a partnership with the Government House Foundation which ‘upscaled’ the Beaver Medal to the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Maritime Achievement.
The award recognizes and acknowledges individuals and organizations along BC’s coast and inland waterways that have made noteworthy contributions to BC’s maritime interests in the areas of science, technology, business, applications of maritime skills, nautical heritage and culture, art, and academic endeavours.
The scope of the award also recognizes Indigenous and traditional practices, environmental stewardship, and ensures diversity in nominees, recipients, and award administration. The six award winners of 2024 reflect that wide variety of noteworthy contributions.
