 | Home page |  | Text size |  | E-mail this page |
Fond memories on return visit Former resident sees changes to town
since working stint in the sixties
Shawn Giilck
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, July 4, 2013
INUVIK
There might be some truth to the cliche that you can't go home again. At least if you've been away for nearly 50 years.
Former Inuvik resident John Paish was startled by the changes in the town when he arrived for a visit last week after nearly 50 years away. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo
|
John Paish, a one-time resident of Inuvik, made a return visit last week looking for some lost memories.
Instead, he found some new ones to take back to Alberta with him.
Paish first came to Inuvik in the early to mid 1960s, he said. He worked here for about six or seven years, mostly in the oil industry and as a freight driver. His speciality was seismic drilling.
"I have quite a history of working all over the North," said Paish during a visit to the Inuvik Drum office.
He was here while the town was still under construction, but well after the period of it being a tent city and a conglomeration of "512" cabins some long-timers, such as Gerry Kisoun, remember. The "512" term refers to the square footage of those original buildings.
When Paish first arrived in Inuvik, he stayed for a time at an "old army base camp" before finding a place to live in town.
Paish said he has some fond memories of Inuvik, particularly the friends he made here. He was able to locate at least one of them, Elijah Allen, during his return visit.
"I had a really good visit and talk with him last night," he said.
Among the missing landmarks he was familiar with were the long-vanished apartments near the Esso station on Veteran's Way. That's where he lived for a significant amount of time during the 1960s, Paish said.
"It's changed so much here in town," he said nostalgically. "There weren't all of these apartment buildings, for one thing."
During a quick perusal of the downtown area, he said he remembered the store now operated by NorthMart, as well as most of the buildings on the main downtown block.
Others have been built since then, and some have vanished, like the apartment buildings.
"There was the main street and that was about it," he said. "There were two bars, the Hudson Bay, and a lounge."
He reminisced about the drilling work he did, which included installing the pilings for many of the utilidors and buildings being erected. He also drilled test holes for the Dempster Highway, which was built some years later.
Paish said he had always wanted to return to Inuvik, at least to visit, but he was working a farm in Alberta as well as continuing his career as a driller and freight driver.
"With that kind of schedule, I didn't have time for a vacation," he said. "I only took weekend trips nearby, maybe to some lakes or something like that.
"Now I want to enjoy life and do the travelling I've always wanted to do."
That might well include some more visits to the North and Inuvik, he said.
| 
