Grace, Lyall and Doug 
Doug and Lyall
Doug was my brother and only sibling. Growing up together in the 1950s and 60s was really different than now. Parents would kick you out of the house in the morning and tell you to be home by dark. Stay out of trouble was more of a challenge than a caution. We lived in a veteran’s community in Nepean which is now part of Ottawa. Our home backed onto farmland and forest. Our yards were ½ acre lots. We entertained ourselves and Doug usually made all of the decisions. Although there is almost 3 years different in our ages Doug always included me in everything until he became a teenager. Then things changed.
Grace, Doug, Glen and Lyall 
Grace, Doug and Glen 
Grace, Doug, Glen and Lyall 
Grace, Doug and Glen
The change was hard because I idolized him. Whatever he did I wanted to do. Doug always had a lot of friends and was a good student. When I followed him in school I realized two things. One: I wasn’t as smart as Doug and Two: because of that I couldn’t get away with the shenanigans he did. Doug was always political. I remember one time he and his friends organized a high school walk out to protest some administrative decision. Doug knew that out in Nepean the action wouldn’t garner attention so ½ hour before the walk out he called the local TV station. The administration knew Doug was behind the protest and ordered him not to leave the school or face getting expelled. Still ¾ of the student population did walk out and it made the evening news. By the time we were in our mid teens our home life had deteriorated to the point that Doug, and few friends and I rented a house together. We were now hanging out together again and had mutual friends. It was a really fun time.
Doug 
Doug
Anyone that has ever driven with Doug knows what type of driver he is and that has never changed. One time we were driving together to work at a construction site on Doug’s motorcycle. Some guy in a car did something that Doug didn’t like and he went after him. While driving Doug pulls out his framing hammer and hands it to me yelling ‘smash his headlights’. Doug trying to position the bike and me swinging wildly trying to wreck havock. I can only imagine what that must have looked like to the driver of the car. This was not uncommon for Doug though he toned down the road violence , I was never relaxed when Doug was at the helm. Driving was always a competitive sport and he was, in his mind, always right.
Doug was a very generous brother. I could always count him if I needed help and he gave more than he received. Doug lived a very spontaneous life. Things would occur in the moment and his life plans would change accordingly. In the early 70’s I was looking for land to buy and I sold him my almost new 1973 Kawasaki 900 Z1 motorcycle. He loved that bike and decided to travel on it to see where it would take him. BC was his first destination. In his first week in Vancouver someone ran a red light and hit him. The frame of the bike was bent (I still have the frame) and consequently he had to stay in Vancouver in order to collect the insurance settlement. He always said it was the best thing to happen to him. He met Lyse and eventually Nadja was born. He never stopped talking about them and when the grandsons were born he was over the moon. BC would remain his home for the rest of his life. It is where he developed the community of friends and family that carried him throughout his life. I too fell in love with the west, especially west Kootney. Wanda, our daughters and I started to spend time skiing in the west. Especially White Water and Red which have some of the best snowboard powder in the world. Often with friends I would hook up with Doug after a day on the hills and he fit in with everyone. My friends would always remark what a nice guy he was. If I was walking around Nelson with Doug, you never went very far before someone would stop Doug to chat. One of my friends recently decided to buy some land in Nelson and I connected him with Doug for advice. Over the span of a year a spot was located that the friend wanted to buy.
In December Doug had not told anyone that he was sick, and we didn’t know. I asked him if he could look at the lot and give his assessment. In spite of how sick he must have been feeling he still went out, photographed the lot and wrote up an assessment. That was Doug to a ‘T’. Always thinking of others.
The past dozen years of his life have been some of the most fulfilling. He built a dozen homes of high quality in Nelson. He was his own boss and even though it was not very profitable he just loved getting it right. Most builders today slap things up of such poor quality that homeowners are left to fix the problems. That was not Doug. If it had to be ripped up and done over, so be it. It just had to be done right. This adherence to excellence would eventually cost him his livelihood prematurely but when the dust settled he began to see it as a blessing. Freedom again to reinvent himself. He was just settling into that new life when the pandemic hit and he isolated himself. Both friends and family worried, rightly so. This was atypical of Doug. However keeping the pain and suffering to himself was classic Doug. We now know that by the late summer of 2020 the effects of the kidney and bowel cancer had manifested themselves. An autopsy would eventually point to pancreatic cancer as well. I can only imagine the worry and pain he was in. Wanda and I were in frequent contact with him over the past year and when asked how he was doing he would always respond “pretty good, and how are you doing”. That was Doug.