The Old Man Didn't Do Too Bad

A friend of mine died late last week, someone I wish you could have known. His name was Bob Richardson. He was eighty years old, and he was living in retirement in Morse, Saskatchewan. Despite being a lung cancer surivor, he was an active man; a lover of conversation, art, and travel. He had a little Shitsu dog named Lady Emma for company, a computer for writing and email, and the tools of a painter's trade in a little truck he'd drive from town to town in the summers.

Bob's paintings can be found for sale in a few places across the country: National Parks gift shops, and some cafes and small galleries. For the most part, they are simple, earthy watercolours that deal with timeless themes of man and the land, often drawing on Native imagery and ideas. He came by these things honestly, and used them with deep respect.

You should read Bob's books. The first, A Face Beside the Fire, is a memoir of a remarkable woman, Bob's late wife Dawn Grey Owl Richardson, daughter of the legendary writer and conservationist. She was Bob's companion from 1974 until she died in the early eighties, and Bob called those the best years of his life. They travelled Canada and the world, often accompanied by Dawn's mom Anahereo, also known as Gertie.

Anahereo's relationship with Grey Owl is legendary, but the way Bob spoke of her, this was a woman with greatness of her own. It was she who awoke the conservationist in Archie Belaney, the Englishman who insisted on "living the Indian life". The books he wrote as Grey Owl are still in print today; they remain a stirring reminder of the need to heed nature's way.

Dawn was Bob's third wife. He was married 4 times in all, and had seven kids by his first two marriages. He wrote his second book, Son of an Orphan, "more or less as therapy," as he put it. He wanted to set the record straight for his kids, about a life he was proud to have lived.

Bob's road was a long one. It ran from a little farm near the north shore of Lake Superior, to the wartime shipyards of Port Arthur, to the wireless offices of the CN railway, to Grey Owl's cabin in Prince Albert park, to the shores of England where Dawn died, to the set of the movie Grey Owl, where Bob hobnobbed with Pearse Brosnan. And always, the road wound through the endless Canadian landscape, most recently in the company of little Lady Emma. "It's just the dog and me left," he said, "the two look-alikes."

By the time our paths crossed, Bob had made for himself an interesting life, and he knew it. I knew Bob initially as a pen-pal; he had written a story for the Discovery Channel website when I was working there, and we'd stayed in touch after I'd moved on. He'd sent me his books and I'd devoured them. He was a living link to a deep well of clear, cool Canadiana. I couldn't get enough.

I put Bob in touch with my buddy Michael Glover, a painter of vanishing landscapes, and when they met in person the two artists and wanderers became thick as thieves. Bob held court at the Elkhorn Tavern in Morse, and Michael made a video of them hoisting their glasses together there. The tales they must have spun... it makes me grin just to think of it.

I finally met Bob in person last summer, in Red Rock, east of Thunder Bay, while the annual folk festival was in full swing. Bob had spent the day sharing stories at the Historical Society booth, and I was alternating between performing at the festival and shooting a documentary on local musician Rodney Brown. I set up a folding lawnchair in front of the belching pulp mill he'd helped build fifty years ago, put a video camera on a tripod, and let Bob Richardson speak.

I confess that our interview was an hour borrowed from a day that was already too busy. And I confess that there haven't been many hours to spare for editing, and that Bob never got to see the tape of our conversation. That's my lesson. He was ever so patient with me. The video wasn't for him, really. It was for his kids and whoever else would listen. Still...

Some people used to believe that a camera would steal your soul. I've always behaved as if that might be true. But occasionally someone shares a little bit of his soul, knowing that the camera can record it, preserve it, and even sometimes give it new life.

That's what Bob Richardson did last summer. He gave an hour of his life to a callow young man with a video camera, and he calmly painted right onto the tape the colours and the themes and the meaning of his eighty years. He spoke the simplest truths there are to speak: that circumstances make life challenging; that choices determine our outcomes; that God and nature are one and the same. Read that again. It's important.

Today, the pulp mill in Red Rock has shut down, and the town will likely shut down with it before too long. The Elkhorn Tavern is slated to be shuttered; not many people move to Morse nowadays. And the price of gas is hard on poor old painters. But the road... "The road is endless," Bob said. "Could go anywhere. As long as I can see, and move... probably go someplace else yet." And he did.

Just like in Bob's early days doing telegraphy for the railway, we're wrapping the world in wires and lighting up the wires with words. It's hard for the elders to keep up, and it's hard for the youth to remember. But I will remember these words, I swear, because if I'm very fortunate I may get to say them for myself, just like Bob Richardson, at a rest stop along an endless road:

"The old man didn't do too bad."