SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Archie Buckley rarely sat still. He was always moving, working, with a tool in his hands, a distinctive red hat on his head and a wry smile on his face.

Archie Buckley spent most of his time on the water. He is pictured here on his barge on Great Slave Lake in 2008. The freshwater fisherman was rarely seen without a red hat, which his daughter, Betty, said he stocked up on from Weaver and Devore. - NNSL file photo

This summer will be the first time in many decades the iconic fisherman won't be plying Great Slave Lake. Buckley died of cancer April 17 at the age of 77.

His children remember him as fiercely independent, an enterprising problem solver who forged a life off the lakes of the North. A man who loved spending time with his family, who didn't hesitate passing on his wisdom as he saw fit. A serious man who still loved to laugh.

"He was very blunt. He told you how it was, and he didn't care if it hurt your feelings," said his daughter Betty Buckley. "He had a way of putting things, that you wouldn't get mad."

A creature of habit who ate at the Bistro and socialized at the Gold Range, Betty said he father loved a good story and country and western music.

But most people who knew Archie, knew him as a fisherman in Old Town.

For almost two decades, he owned and operated Great Slave Fish Products Ltd, working out of a barge docked on Yellowknife Bay.

He was a pioneer in the freshwater fishing industry, the first to begin filleting fish and selling it himself, say family members.

His son Ashley remembers Archie using the kitchen sink as a washing station, recruiting stray hands to help with the process.

"We were a tight family, there was lots of us and we all did it," he said. "That's how filleted fish in the North became."

Archie knew the lakes intimately, and was happiest on the water.

"You could drop him in the middle of Great Slave Lake and he'd know where he was," said Betty.

He grew up in the bush in northern Saskatchewan and was 16 before he saw his first town. He lived on a bear and mink farm near Buffalo Narrows and took over his own father's fishing operation at age nine. He began coming North on rotation in the 1960s, building pipelines and roads as work was needed. A self-taught man with no formal education, he wasn't short of wit or smarts, and had a vast knowledge of Northern waterways.

He settled into the North, living first in Hay River and then Yellowknife. He did surveys for Fisheries and Oceans and taught local contractors how to build ice roads before starting to fish full-time in the 1980s.

"He was the salt of the earth. The hardest working fisherman on this lake," said John Alexander, who lives on McDonald Drive close to where Buckley moored his barge on the government dock.

Alexander said he remembers Archie and his late wife, Nancy, as inseparable, but opposites. Nancy, who died in December 2007, was bubbly and outgoing, Archie was quieter and kept to himself.

"For the two of them, Nancy and Archie, 18-hour days were normal," said Alexander.

Even when Archie became sick, he didn't complain or demand attention.

"He was so old school, he didn't really do the hospital thing. He never said he had to go until it was so late," said Betty.

"I'll always see him at the wheel of the ship," said Ashley.

Buckley is survived by seven sons, four daughters and many grandchildren and great grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held Friday at 2 p.m. at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Yellowknife.