105 Martin Valiere and Me

The summer of ’91 proved to be one of my most enjoyable summers in the Chilcotin. This was the last time that I was to work in that part of what I considered to be one of the most beautiful pieces of BC east of the coastal mountains.

This particular summer I was blessed with one of the neatest summer students, a young French Canadian from the Province of Quebec. He and two of his French-speaking friends had come out to BC from Quebec in the hope of improving their English language skills by attending the University of British Columbia. In the middle of the school year Martin had moved out of the apartment that he shared with his buddies to get away from always speaking French when with them. And now it was mutually agreed that my job for the summer would be to help him in his continuing attempt to speak the King’s English. It was the only time that I can remember that I was thanked for being rude by continually interrupting and correcting someone while they were speaking and yet being thanked for it.

The summer seemed to pass quickly even though Martin and I would be stuck out in the bush three weeks at a time. For most of that summer Martin and I rented a cabin right beside Puntzi Lake. This was a beautiful lake with plenty of fish to be caught, but Martin who had a passion for fly-fishing never fished it, as he seemed to prefer the rivers of the Chilcotin.

Martin, great fly fisherman that he was, would never pass up a chance to fish. I can still see him standing up to his waist in the Chilcotin River as happy as a clam catching one fish after another. In fact he caught so many trout that he got so sick of them that he quit eating them, he couldn’t stand the sight of them, at least in the fry pan.

That summer I started using a new electronic data-collecting device called a Poly-chorder. Marin used to sit back and watch me in my frustrated efforts to program it so it could do what it was supposed to do, and that was to make my work easier, this of course at the time was quite debatable. I can still see Martin shaking his head while saying “Poli-cordur” in his heavy French accent and then laughing uncontrollable.

As far as respect goes I guess that is why I appreciated Martin as a summer student as he would sit and listen to my philosophizing at great length and never appeared rude or indifferent. I suppose I missed the sarcasm if there was any as he used to call me father in a tongue and check sort of way.

The summer ended too soon but I will always remember his good nature and we parted as good friend when the summer was over. A testimony to our connection was that we continued to correspond for some time after that summer and I still have an invitation, which I will take him up on, if I ever visit Quebec.