Dave Hardy, in Cumberland

I bought a house and moved my family from Comox to Cumberland in the late 1970s. The village had become an enclave for a new wave of artists emerging from the newly formed Comox Valley Arts Alliance, and others in search of affordable housing.

One of the first people I met there was a commercial fisher named Dave Hardy. He had a trawler moored at the Government Wharf in Comox (I can’t remember the name of his boat) and worked local waters. He was a kind person. When my father visited from Minnesota, Dave  offered to take him on as deckhand for a day. It was an experience my dad talked about for years.

I walked by Dave’s house one late-summer day and found him working on an enormous pile of logs in his yard. He heated his house with wood, as did many in Cumberland. The way he trimmed his beard always made me think of Abe Lincoln, but better looking and living the west coast lifestyle.