Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 24/01) - Friends and family are mourning the death of long-time Northerner Wilfred Stanley Smith. He passed away at Stanton Regional Hospital early Friday morning of cancer. He was 72.

The sight of Smith setting out across Yellowknife Bay to set his fishing nets has long been a part of Old Town legend.

In his 50 years in the North, Smith also worked as a diamond driller and camp worker besides commercial fishing on Great Slave Lake.

He is remembered as one who was generous and always had time to sit and chat over coffee.

"He sold me fish for the last 30 years," remembers Scotty McLeod. "He would bring my fish up all the time. We would have coffee and go out to the flea market together."

Morley Johnson worked several jobs fishing and drilling with Smith over the years.

Like many fishermen on Great Slave Lake, Johnson and Smith were from Selkirk, Manitoba originally, although they didn't meet until Smith came North around 1950-51.

Johnson says times were tough for all fishermen in those days -- especially when waiting for the ice to break up or freeze -- but Smith always managed to persevere.

"He fell through a crack in the ice one time, and Wilfred couldn't swim," Johnson recalls. "He was hanging onto the ice and said (to his partner), 'give me a hand, I can't swim,' and his partner said, 'I can't, I'm hanging onto the snowmobile.'

"Wilfred managed to get out and get the snowmobile out. They drained it, and made it six miles back to camp. There's lots of little incidents like that."

Johnson says most of his friends were surprised to hear Smith had taken ill so suddenly. Even when he began to feel sick, Smith continued to fish last summer.

"He never complained that much about anything," says Johnson. He would take it as it comes, and he was a really friendly guy."

Smith is survived by his son Alexander, former wife Barbara Mackenzie, and a wide circle of friends.

A funeral service will be held Friday, Oct. 26, starting at 1:30 p.m. at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church with Rev. Donald Flumfelt presiding.

Family and friends ask that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Canadian Cancer Society.