Remembering Clare Palmer
I’m thinking the year was about 1953 when I met Clare. I was staying across the lake with Grandma Rose when Clare came over in his little boat. He was a small blond fellow full of life and adventure.
We fished from the floats leading out to the boathouse and caught several rainbows and a big squawfish. It was a warm spring day so we took the fish up to Grandma’s sink. A few minutes later we heard her yelling. The squawfish had revived and was skittering around the kitchen floor. We dispatched it and continued fishing.
The adventure would go on for six more decades. It was about all things Kootenay boys of the day loved: fishing, exploring the country, hockey, skiing and just being very good friends.
There could not have been a better friend than Clare Palmer.
We started fishing in the early spring when the snow was still hanging on. It was the city wharf for whitefish at first then silvers at the wharf and rainbows at the boathouses, Grohman or Burns Point. Later in the summer, we fished the creeks and mountain lakes. Our Dad’s would take us to the trailheads and we would hike into the high lakes to camp and fish. Sometimes we would hitchhike to Cottonwood Lake, Apex or Hall Siding or even to Balfour to fish. The mouth of Grohman Creek was one of our favorite spots. We would boat down to the old landing then hike across the lodge pole flat to the creek, wade across and fish the mouth with flies, grasshoppers or caddis larvae – we called them “ periwinkles”. We usually caught five or six good rainbows then picked huckleberries on the way back. Once we made a pie . We forgot to add something to thicken the juice so the pie was very runny – we devoured it anyway.
In the fall, we played hockey or raided gardens. As the fifties progressed, we started to ski: the old golf course hill first then Silver King. Clare and I were among the first group to start clearing for Silver King along with such stalwarts as Clare’s parents, Danny McKay and Tom Ramsay.
We moved to California in 1958. Clare and I wrote each other a fair bit. We were back in Nelson in 1966 but I was mostly away at school so I wasn’t around much. I worked with Clare at Star Transfer for a couple of summers and we continued to fish as much as possible.
We both got married late in the sixties and my wife and I moved to the Island in 1969. I didn’t see Clare so much after that. We still fished when we could and went to hockey games when I was around in the winter months. One of my fondest memories of those times is going over to Trail for a Leafs-Smokies game in his red Comet. After the game, we drank beer at the Terra Nova and listened to Kitty Wells on the Comet’s eight track on the way back to Nelson. I think the year was 1970.
In the 70’s, Clare re-married and raised four beautiful daughters with his wife Patti. I saw less and less of him as his duties as a husband and father increased. We kept in contact though and usually managed a few visits when I was in Nelson.
Clare died September 19, 2014. I will forever miss him dearly. Words alone will never express what a wonderful friend he was.
Ted Burns
October 8/14
Clare and Jimmy Rogers, 1968
Clare at Pilot Bay
At 1024 Hoover
At Krao Lake