HAY RIVER - Mansell Grey lived one amazing and interesting life - a family man and business owner who fell into alcoholism, spent seven years on skid row in Vancouver, and emerged to dedicate well over three decades to helping others stop drinking.

On Oct. 22, that amazing life came to an end when Grey died at the age of 85 in Hay River, where he had lived since the early 1990s.

In an interview last year with News/North, Grey said he'd never had a drink in Hay River, and that may be part of the reason he came to call the town home.

"Sobriety, as far as I'm concerned, is a gift from God," he said. "The best thing you can be is an example."

Ron Antoine, a friend of 10 years, said Grey probably helped hundreds of people in Hay River and perhaps thousands in the NWT.

Grey was deeply involved in Alcoholics Anonymous and also spoke on occasion at the Nats'ejee K'eh Treatment Centre and the South Mackenzie Correctional Centre.

Antoine said people would listen to what Grey had to say because he knew what he was talking about.

"I had the opportunity to go down to Vancouver with him to see what it was like and he showed me places that I couldn't believe - where he ate, where he slept," Antoine said, adding Grey, during his time on skid row, often slept outside and ate out of dumpsters.

"For a guy to come out of there, it's a miracle," Antoine said. "Not many people make it out of there."

Grey started to lead a sober lifestyle when he was 49.

Before coming to Hay River, he worked as an alcohol and drug counsellor in northern British Columbia and then in Fort Providence for several years beginning in the late 1980s. A roofer by trade, he moved to Hay River to start a construction company.

During his retirement, he worked as a shuttle driver for Rowe's Construction.

"Mansell Grey was a happy go lucky, challenge me at anything kind of guy," Antoine said. "He pretty much did everything. He drove cab, he shuttled, he counselled, he did labour work. He did a lot of things in his lifetime."

Antoine said Grey and his late second wife also fostered about 30 children in Hay River.

"Mansell, he had a big heart," Antoine said. "He had a big heart in helping people. I used to go visit him almost every day to check on him and to see how he was doing. Most of the time he would have people in his apartment and he'd be talking to these people. So they'd be coming and going all the time."

Father Don Flumerfelt of Assumption Roman Catholic Church knew Grey for two years and was also struck by his willingness to help people.

"He had his door open for anybody who had trouble with alcohol," Flumerfelt said. "One time I'd visited him and he'd had his nose broken because one of the people had come in angry and drunk and smashed the door on him. But he kept the door open."

Flumerfelt called Grey a great man, explaining it is exceptional for someone to survive seven years on the streets of Vancouver and then spend 36 years of his life helping other people never to be there.

Antoine described Grey as a sober drunk, explaining he would say he was only one drink away from being a drunk again.

Grey grew up in the gold mining town of Stewart, B.C., before his family moved to Vancouver.

When he was young, he served for a time in the military.

Grey married and had four daughters and one son, plus he owned a successful construction company.

However, after breaking his back while skiing and a long bout with tuberculosis, he began to drink to drown his problems, and eventually lost his family and his business.

"I was living on skid row in Vancouver ... I'm lucky I'm not still in jail," he said in the 2009 interview. "Those things happen, they're not easy to get over."

For much of that time, his family didn't know if he was alive or dead. He'd contact them occasionally, but disappear for long periods.

One of his children is Deb Grey, who was elected as the Reform Party's first Member of Parliament in 1989.

In an e-mail message to her father's friends in Hay River upon his passing, Deb Grey said Hay River became her father's home and he lived his senior years very happily and peacefully.

"Thanks for making Dad's last years such a blessing," she wrote. "He loved you all as family."

Like his daughter, Mansell Grey had political ambitions. In the 1993 federal election, he ran for the Reform Party in the Western Arctic riding and collected 2,000 votes to finish second. In 1994, he was elected to Hay River town council and served three years.

Neither Antoine nor Flumerfelt could identify the exact cause of Grey's death, other than to ascribe it to old age.

"Obviously, he had problems with his lungs because he was a fairly heavy smoker," Flumerfelt said. "I think he lived a good life and he just sort of came to the conclusion that enough was enough, and basically he just let go."

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.