Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 10, 2007

HAY RIVER - After three decades of living in Hay River, Ron Cook has entered his final year in the North.

And, he is leaving with mixed emotions.

Ron Cook is getting his Hay River home ready to sell in advance of his move to B.C. next year, although a deer's head still adorns a wall. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

Cook and his wife, Gale, are moving to Salmon Arm, B.C., to be closer to their families in Vancouver and Calgary.

Cook, 65, said he is finding Northern winters a little tougher as he gets older.

Cook said it is a difficult decision to leave Hay River.

"It's a wonderful community," he said. "There are great people here. It's been great."

In fact, it was in Hay River that Cook and his wife met and were married in 1990. They each have two children from previous marriages.

Cook came to Hay River in 1974 as a social worker and was the first manager of the Hay River Housing Authority.

In 1979, he went back to his home province of Manitoba to become involved in a ranching operation with his brother and brother-in-law.

"I quite enjoyed it. I enjoyed the outdoors part of it," he said, adding he was born into a ranching family.

Cook said he grew up in the Manitoba community of Steep Rock, about 250 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

However, he was born in Grahamdale, Man.

"I was born in a hotel room above the beer parlor," he said, explaining the midwife worked there and the location might explain why he never drank.

Cook returned north in 1981 to work for the Town of Hay River.

"I missed the North," he recalled, adding that, while ranching was interesting, "You can't talk to cattle all the time. I missed the people."In 1982, he started the town's recreation department.

Cook said his major accomplishment as recreation director was helping develop a variety of facilities and programs, such as ball fields and playgrounds.

Even though he studied social work at college, he said his major was community development.

"So recreation was a natural," he said, adding it involves promoting and encouraging community groups.

Cook was also an accomplished athlete himself.

When he went to university at Bethel College in Minnesota, he played baseball and curled. In Hay River, he played fastball and curled. In fact, he made it to national competitions in senior and mixed curling.

He remained active, despite having two operations - one in 1980 while in Manitoba and another in 1988 in Edmonton - to replace a valve in his heart.

Cook retired as recreation director in 2003, the same year he was named Hay River Citizen of the Year.

However, that was far from the end of his community involvement.

In 2003, he was elected to town council.

"I missed the action," he said of his decision to get into municipal politics, explaining he wanted to keep in touch and have input into what happened in the community.

"I enjoyed the first term quite a bit," he said, adding council got a number of things accomplished.

"The second term started off wonderfully," he said, before cutting the sentence short and starting to laugh.

Cook was among the eight councillors ousted from office by a recent court ruling on voting irregularities, which led to the Dec. 10 byelection.

"I was very disappointed, you betcha," he said of the court ruling.

Cook doesn't understand why the councillors bore the brunt of the court ruling when none of them did anything wrong.

Of the eight ousted councillors, he was the only one not to seek re-election because of his plans to leave Hay River in August of next year.