“Alan wasn't the kind of person who could be told what to do. You don't let someone else tell you what kind of operation to do; you've got to know that yourself. Alan was very conservative in his approach to surgery. Not in politics, but in terms of surgery he was very conservative. At times, one particular operation becomes quite popular and they're all doing it. Alan would say, "Tut, tut," if he heard people talking about things like that. For example, spinal fusion was in style for a long time. Alan would have to have a very good reason to do one of those. I'm prejudiced, but I thought he was a very good diagnostician. And that was the big thing. It's one thing to operate, but you have to know when it's appropriate. He wouldn't ever operate just because another doctor told him he should.”

— Kay Inglis, Hornby Island

“We did one interesting project that was started by a woman in eastern Canada, a well-known and highly respected physicist, and a member of Voice of Women from early on. She decided it would be a good idea to test baby teeth for strontium 90, which was released when the Americans were doing above-ground testing of nuclear weapons. We — the Vancouver Voice of Women — latched onto this idea. I got in touch with the school board in North Vancouver and asked if they would allow us to suggest to students that when they lost their baby teeth, they would give them to science rather than putting them under their pillow for the tooth fairy. The schools were all very supportive, and of course it was done with parental permission. The children would bring their teeth in and get a button that said "I Gave My Tooth to Science." My friend Kay Bailey and I would go around to the schools and pick these teeth up. We'd also pick up a form that told us where the child was born and where they'd lived for the next few years. It was also important to pinpoint where the mother had been during her pregnancy, because teeth are already developing during that time. Kay and I would sit on our living room floor and sort out the teeth according to where they'd come from. We'd label them and send them to the University of Toronto to be analyzed. And it was shown that there was a correlation between the amount of strontium 90 in children's teeth and the wind patterns that prevailed during nuclear explosions. The impact was particularly strong in the United States, closer to the tests. I thought it was a worthwhile thing to do. People needed to be aware of what was going on with nuclear testing because it was affecting children. The testing went underground after that, which solved one problem but didn't solve the nuclear problem altogether.”

— Pat McLaughlin, Denman Island

“During my last three years of high school I had a summer job working for a logging company, Curly and Trotter. It was owned by Harry Trotter and his father-in-law, Floyd Curly. Harry’s place was the lot at the top of the hill on First Street, beside the first lot my dad sold. I went out for a while with Harry’s daughter, Harlene. She died of cancer about ten years ago.  

Curly and Trotter had a logging claim – quite a sizable claim – on Sonora Island, one of the islands up Johnstone Strait. There were four fallers and two yarding crews, plus assorted truck drivers and mechanics and that kind of thing. I worked first as a whistlepunk, then as a chokerman, and finally as head loader, loading logging trucks. That was a good job, good money. We’d go in on Sunday, then work until Thursday and come out Thursday evening. Friday, Saturday, Sunday we had off. We’d work ten-hour days to make up the extra time – to get the extra day off. Most of the crew came from Courtenay, so the company had a crummy that drove us up to Brown’s Bay, just north of Seymour Narrows, then they had a boat to take the crew to Sonora Island. 

Loading trucks was a good job and one I particularly enjoyed. That meant using a heel boom, which is a spar with a boom. You have two chokers for picking up the logs and putting them on the truck and you move the truck back and forth to balance the load. There’d be two guys on the ground hooking the logs up. I was up on the cab of the truck most of the time because I’d have to unhook the tongs once the logs were in place on the truck. We’d swing them over and drop them on the truck bed. We’d load those trucks with as much as they would take because it was a private road and we could do that. So overloading the truck wasn’t a concern, but getting the load even was a concern. The truck had to be stable, so you had to pick and choose which log you wanted next in order to do that. You had to build a nice bed and then work up from there. There was a bit of an art to it – you definitely had to think about what you were doing. That was a lot of responsibility for a high school kid, but it wasn’t unusual in those days.”

— Douglas Bell, Denman Island, BC