"I knew him quite well," said Connie Miller, who worked as a library clerk for 20 years. Miller is upset by recent news reports that suggest Colley was a recluse.

"He wasn't mysterious at all, he was a nice person."

Colley was at the library at least once a week, Miller said, and thought everyone should be more interested in quantum theory.

"He was a very deep reader," Miller said.

Colley also liked to attend council meetings, Miller recalled.

"He asked why I didn't go," Miller said.

Colley spoke of leaving money to the Yellowknife Public Library, Miller remembered, adding, "if they moved to a better location."

The last time Miller saw Colley, he'd just suffered a stroke.

His cheek was swollen and he'd bitten his tongue, which prompted Miller to encourage him to see a doctor.

"He wasn't a man to go to doctors," Miller said.

Long-time Yellowknife resident Bill Holden also remembers Colley. Holden was surprised to hear about the large donation Colley made to the library, but knew the quiet man enjoyed going there to read.

Holden met him occasionally walking downtown.

"Oh yeah, I knew him," Holden said in a phone interview Thursday.

"He was a plumber. I just met him like you meet anyone. We'd say hi, talk about the weather."

Holden said Colley kept to himself, but whenever Holden encountered him, Colley was pleasant, always carrying a canvas satchel over his shoulder, "probably filled with books," Holden suspected.

"Or plumbing," Holden said laughing. "I couldn't say for sure."

Holden also recalls that Colley had a crippled arm, which appeared quite a bit smaller than the other.

"He may have been born with it, I don't know."

According to a biography compiled by library staff, Colley was born in Boulder, Australia, in 1911 and died in Edmonton, Jan. 30, 2002.

He became a Canadian citizen on Dec. 19, 1967, in Yellowknife and lived near Sir John Franklin high school.