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LANGTON o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-06-03 published
Accidental airline' opened British Columbia coast
Ham-radio operator became salesman, aviator and award-winning author
By Tom HAWTHORN Special to The Globe and Mail Tuesday, June 3, 2003 - Page R5
Jim SPILSBURY was an itinerant radio salesman and founder of what became known as "the accidental airline." His businesses brought the wider world to the isolated canneries, logging camps, steamer camps and native villages along the rugged British Columbia coast.
Mr. SPILSBURY, who has died at 97, took it as his calling to make life easier for his fellow coast dwellers. He later realized to his dismay that he had contributed to ending a way of life, as many of his customers forsook the hardships of isolation for the city.
The coastal hamlets he visited by boat and, later, plane became a roll call of ghost towns and all-but-forgotten ports of call: Surge Narrows, Blind Channel, Grassy Bay, Squirrel Cove, Whaletown.
"Nowadays the world I knew has all but vanished," he wrote in 1990. "As I cruise the bays and inlets I have known so well, the coast for me becomes a haunted place, haunted by all the people and places that gave it life."
The first of two memoirs written with Howard WHITE/WHYTE was released by Mr. WHITE/WHYTE's Harbour Publishing in 1987. SPILSBURY's Coast became a regional bestseller and the winner of a British Columbia Book Prize.
A second volume, The Accidental Airline, published the following year, was also well received by critics and readers. Pastels of Pacific coastal scenes by Mr. SPILSBURY, an accomplished painter, graced the covers of both books.
Mr. SPILSBURY's arrival by boat was a welcome respite from day-to-day labours for many living and working the fiords along the Inside Passage between Vancouver Island and the mainland.
That he was an accomplished storyteller and superb radio technician made him a legendary character long before his books were published.
Ashton James SPILSBURY was born on October 8, 1905, in the same upstairs bedroom as his father at Longlands, the family's ancestral home at Findern, Derbyshire. His parents had returned to the mother country from British Columbia at the urging of the SPILSBURY clan, which did not wish to have a scion born in the colonies.
His father, Ashton Wilmot SPILSBURY, was a Cambridge-educated gentleman whose modest business schemes were fraught with disaster his mother, the former Alice Maud BLIZARD, was a pants-wearing suffragist with little use for convention. Soon after their son's birth, they returned to their 144-hectare homestead at Whonnock on British Columbia's Fraser River.
After a failed business venture cost the family its land, they resettled on Savary Island, a narrow sandbar in Georgia Strait. The SPILSBURYs made their home in a canvas tent erected on an unused road right of way; they were squatters.
Mr. SPILSBURY got his first formal schooling on the island in September, 1914, a month before his ninth birthday. He would attend classes for only four years. By 1919, he began an apprenticeship with a steamship company, an unfortunate choice, as he was seasick for much of the next six months, before quitting.
He worked on Savary as a swamper and knotter on a log float before earning his donkey engineer's steam ticket. When he joined his father in business as Spilsbury and Son, their letterhead included a lengthy list of talents from well-digging to real-estate sales. They also ran a taxi service.
Mr. SPILSBURY had been fascinated with radio as a teenager, building his first crystal set at age 17. The early days of radio involved communication by Morse code. The advent of voice transmission, including a memorable night in 1922 when he tuned in an orchestra performing live from the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, turned his interest into an obsession.
In 1926, Mr. SPILSBURY set out as a radio technician on the Mary, a leaky codfish boat rented for $1 a day. He scrambled to make a living by trolling coastal hamlets and work camps, much of what little profit he made coming from sweet-talking lonely housewives into purchasing an inexpensively produced lemon-oil polish at 75 cents a bottle.
The business grew over the years, as Mr. SPILSBURY sold brand-name radios, as well as those of his own construction, to people for whom the instrument was their only daily contact with the rest of the world. In 1936, he bought a new boat, which he christened the Five B. R., after his ham-radio call of VE5BR.
As a ham operator, he once stayed awake 40 consecutive hours as part of a relay of operators from Vancouver through Parksville on Vancouver Island to Mr. SPILSBURY on Savary Island to Vernon in the Okanagan in the Interior of British Columbia, where a passenger train had derailed in an ice storm. Mr. SPILSBURY handled 340 messages in three days on his home-built radio.
The Five B. R. was called "the radio boat" and was a fixture along the coast, where Mr. SPILSBURY heralded his arrival by sounding an ear-splitting police siren.
A wartime restriction on gas for boats led Mr. SPILSBURY to purchase a Waco Standard biplane for $2,500. Service calls that had taken days now lasted only minutes. "I knew I would never be able to look at that coastal world in quite the same way," he wrote in SPILSBURY's Coast. "It had become less mysterious, less forbidding, less grand."
Mr. SPILSBURY soon discovered that those in isolated locales wanted not just radios and repairs, but access to his airplane. He got a charter licence, and bought a pair of twin-engine Stranraer flying boats converted into passenger craft, after getting a contract to serve logging companies on the Queen Charlotte Islands.
The ungainly Strannies gave birth to Queen Charlotte Airlines Limited, which took as its slogan, "In the wake of the war canoes." The airline bought so many second-hand aircraft that a separate company was formed to buy and sell equipment. Some said the initials Q.C.A. actually stood for Queer Collection of Aircraft. By June, 1949, only two other companies -- Trans-Canada Airlines and Canadian Pacific -- were flying more revenue miles than Mr. SPILSBURY's accidental airline, which had grown to 300 employees during the postwar boom.
The company replaced the ugly-duckling Strannies with sleek DC-3s, but the airline struggled as Russ Baker of Central British Columbia Airlines, later Pacific Western, lured passengers away. The upstart bought Queen Charlotte Airlines for $1.4-million in July, 1955, by which time Mr. SPILSBURY was a minority shareholder in the airline he had founded. He was out of the airline business just as suddenly as he had gotten into it.
He continued manufacturing communications equipment at a converted warehouse in Vancouver. Spilsbury and Tindall Ltd. was a name known around the globe; their famous SBX-11 portable radio-telephone was used at the North Pole as well as at the summit of Mount Everest.
One is on display at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec
Some of Mr. SPILSBURY's business ventures displayed his father's touch. He lost an estimated $65,000 trying to sell the two-seat Isetta, a microcar nicknamed "the rolling egg."
In 1981, he sold his radio-manufacturing company, by then known as SPILSBURY Communications Ltd.
His two memoirs were followed by SPILSBURY's Album in 1990, also published by Harbour, which recycled some of the anecdotes of his memoirs with photographs of the coast.
Mr. SPILSBURY was named to the Order of British Columbia in 1993. He was also inducted into the British Columbia Aviation Hall of Fame. An award bearing his name is presented annually by the Coast Guard Auxiliary and the Western Canada Telecommunications Council (which he founded) to the person who contributes the most to marine safety through the use of radio.
Mr. SPILSBURY died of pneumonia at Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver on April 20. He leaves three children from his first marriage, which ended in divorce -- daughter Marie LANGTON and sons Ron and Dave SPILSBURY. He also leaves six grandchildren and one great-grandchild. He was predeceased by his second wife, the former Winnifred HOPE.

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LANKTREE o@ca.on.manitoulin.howland.little_current.manitoulin_expositor 2003-03-12 published
LANKTREE
-In loving memory of a dear Dad, Father-in-Law and Grandpa Donald.
He had a nature we could not help loving..
And a heart that was purer than gold.
To those, Dad, who knew you and loved you
Memories will never grow old.
"Thinking of you always"
Ben, Eunice, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Also good memories of brother Kenneth and sister Aileen.

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LANKTREE o@ca.on.manitoulin.howland.little_current.manitoulin_expositor 2003-03-19 published
Mary Elizabeth LANKTREE
Passed away peacefully on Sunday March 9, 2003 at the Salvation Army AR Goudie Eventide Home, Kitchener.
Mary (née MacDONALD) LANKTREE in her 85th year was the beloved wife of the late Harry LANKTREE (February 27, 1999.) Dear mother of Myrna TIDD of BC, Gloria PRIMEAU of Kitchener, June KAWA and her husband Larry of Val Caron, David LANKTREE and his wife Suzanne of Kitchener and Denise GILBERT and her husband Dana of Kitchener. Loving grandmother of twelve grandchildren and great-grandmother of nine. Dear sister of May KINSLEY, Minerva HALL, Annie McKINLEY. Predeceased by one brother Russell MacDONALD.
Mary's family received relatives and Friends on Tuesday March 11 at the Henry Walser Funeral Home, 507 Frederick Street, Kitchener. Funeral service was held on Wednesday March 12, 2003 in the chapel of the funeral home. Spring interment in Civic Cemetery, Sudbury. Visit www.obit411.com/968 for Mary's memorial.

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LANKTREE o@ca.on.manitoulin.howland.little_current.manitoulin_expositor 2003-09-24 published
Charles Sidney FERGUSON
In loving memory of Charles Sidney FERGUSON on Saturday, September 20, 2003 at Mindemoya Hospital at the age of 76 years.
Born to William and Kathleen (née COX) FERGUSON on May 20, 1927. Beloved husband of the late Audis (née MARSHALL) 1991. Loving father of Sharleen and husband Ian VANHORN, Lori McLENNAN, all of Mindemoya. Special Poppa of Darryl VANHORN and friend Skye, Shannon and husband Marc DROUIN, Jessica McLENNAN. Cherished by great granddaughters Jamey and Taylor VANHORN. Fondly remembered by Susan LANKTREE- VANHORN. Will be missed by sisters, Monica and husband Jim CORRIGAN, Barbara and husband Caryl MOGGY, all of Mindemoya, brother William FERGUSON of M'Chigeeng and sisters-in-law Mazie AELICK and Leona MARSHALL. Funeral service was held on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 at St. Francis of Assisi Anglican Church, Mindemoya.
Cremation with burial in Mindemoya Cemetery. Island Funeral Home.

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LANKTREE o@ca.on.manitoulin.howland.little_current.manitoulin_expositor 2003-11-19 published
Margaret "May" KINSLEY
In loving memory of Margaret "Kay" KINSLEY who died at Sudbury Memorial Hospital on Sunday, November 16, 2003 at the age of 87 years.
Former resident of Tehkummah, Orangeville and Sudbury. Born to Alex and Martha McDONALD on September 7, 1916. Predeceased by both husbands Clarence KINSLEY and Archie McLENNAN. Loved by her children, Florence and husband Gilbert PYETTE of Mindemoya, John and wife Jean of Mindemoya, Russell and wife Fern McLENNAN of Bradford, David KINSLEY of Tehkummah. Will be missed by her grandchildren, Rodney, Anita, Frank, Doug, Don, Mark, Dennis, Janice, Patty (Patricia). Predeceased by granddaughter Barb. Great grandmother of ten. Remembered by siblings, "Russell" (William Alexander)(predeceased) and wife
Kathleen McDONALD, Mary and husband Harry LANKTREE (both predeceased,) Minerva HALL
of Orangeville and Annie and husband Arther (predeceased) McKINLEY of Sudbury.
Visitation from 2-4 and 7-9 on Wednesday, November 19, 2003 and Funeral at 11: 00a.m. Thursday, November 20, 2003 all at Tehkummah Pentecostal Church. Burial in Hilly Grove Cemetery. Island Funeral Home.

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LANTHIER o@ca.on.manitoulin.howland.little_current.manitoulin_expositor 2003-07-02 published
William "Bill" VILLEMERE
In loving memory of William Bill VILLEMERE who passed away Thursday, June 19th ,2003 at the Sudbury Regional Hospital - Memorial Site at the age of 85 years.
Beloved husband of Marion (Lucy) VILLEMERE of Sudbury. Loving father of Marilyn LOGAN (husband William SMITH) of Manitowaning, Robert "Bob" of Sudbury and Margaret LANTHIER (husband Wilfrid) of Tecumseh. Cherished grandfather of Joanne GABOR (husband George) of Windsor, Tammy LANTHIER of Toronto, Sharon WHYNOTT of Halifax, Peter WHYNOTT of Sudbury and great grandchildren Shawn, Matthew, Emily, Tayler and Sydney. Dear son of John and Cora May VILLEMERE both predeceased. Dear brother of John, Otto, George, Grace, Holden, Orval, Ian, Gerald, Dorothy and Edna, all predeceased. Funeral Service was held on Sunday, June 22, 2003 at the R.J. Barnard Chapel, Jackson and Barnard Funeral Home, 233 Larch Street, Sudbury.

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LANTHIER o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-08 published
Anne (HETTEL) LANTHIER
By Terry (KRUPA) LANTHIER Monday, December 8, 2003 - Page A18
Volunteer, wife, mother, aunt. Born May 23, 1920, in Timisoara, Romania. Died June 12 in Brantford, Ontario, of cancer, aged Anne HETTEL was the eldest of five children, born in Timisoara, Romania. Despite the lack of modern technologies and material goods, she frequently recalled her early years in Eastern Europe as filled with the warmth of family, sibling adventures and the creative activity of childhood.
At the age of 11, Anne moved with her family to Canada. Her most vivid memory of the trip was eating a banana for the first time, without the necessary information that the peel should first be removed. The family settled in Montreal, where her father established himself as a tailor in the area of St. Urbain Street, made famous in the writings of Mordecai RICHLER.
At the age of 16, she contracted tuberculosis and was sent to "the San" at St. Agathe for two years. Anne was never one to feel victimized by her life circumstances. She had many good memories of her time in the sanitarium and developed several lifelong Friendships. Recalling how, after her discharge from St. Agathe, a young man she dated had stopped his association with her in response to her illness, Anne sighed "Oh that poor, poor man." She refused to internalize the judgments of others, or to accept intolerance.
Pictures of Anne in her early adult years, strolling confidently down the streets of Montreal, arm in arm with her two sisters, radiate happiness and self-confidence. Wearing impeccably and classically tailored suits, these beautiful young women would not be out of place in today's scene.
In 1947, Anne married Spencer LANTHIER, the son of a prominent councilman and business family, from the Town of Mount Royal. Anne joked that her future husband, a seriously picky eater, was put to the test by Sunday lunches with her family that consisted of their favourites, raw bacon, cabbage, onion and boiled potatoes. In marriage, Ann became a full-time wife, and eventually the mother of three children and the beloved Auntie Anne to many nieces and nephews.
Anne was an active member of the Town of Mount Royal community. She was involved in the ladies' auxiliary for the Protestant Church, contributing her time and energy to fundraisers and annual rummage sales. She was a member of the lawn bowling club and regularly attended meetings of a women's club.
But by far her most valued role was creating a strong sense of home, to be enjoyed by her many Friends and family. Anne took her family obligations seriously, and she nursed several close relations through prolonged and serious illnesses with kindness, compassion and love.
While Anne offered her children her constant love and support, she understood them to be individuals who needed to make their own decisions and to create their own lives. She respected this by maintaining an active and satisfying life that always included, but was not dependent on her family. With the death of her husband in 1984, she continued her travels to visit her sister in Florida, toured Europe and Canada, and tended her garden. She enjoyed young people, and confided that she would have liked to have had the opportunity to learn to swim, to rollerblade and to ice-skate.
Anne was diagnosed with cancer in the spring of 2002. She spoke of a watching a television show that had featured young people who had survived cancer. Clearly concerned about how she would manage this dreaded disease, she stated, "I thought if they could handle it so well, then I suppose I can do it, too."
Anne did manage the disease with grace and dignity. Her final gift was to assure her family that she had indeed lived a full and complete life, and that even at the end she wanted for nothing.
Terry is Anne's daughter-in-law.

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LANTOS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-10-08 published
Observers hail ASPER contribution
But views on Israel and direction of news coverage also provoked controversy
By Richard BLOOM and Paul WALDIE Wednesday, October 8, 2003 - Page B7
In its early days, CanWest Global Communications Corp. may have had the dubious moniker of The Love Boat network, but there is no doubt Izzy ASPER made "very significant" contributions to Canadian media, industry observers said yesterday.
At the same time, his actions as head of the media empire weren't without controversy.
Mr. ASPER died yesterday at 71. A tax lawyer by training, he is more commonly known as the founder of Winnipeg-based CanWest the parent of the Global network of television stations, and which, in 2000, engineered a multibillion-dollar purchase of Southam Newspaper Group, National Post and other assets from Conrad BLACK's Hollinger Inc.
Glenn O'FARRELL, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, said Mr. ASPER left a huge broadcasting legacy.
"The Canadian broadcasting system has been built over the last number of decades through the efforts of some fairly significant entrepreneurs, and Izzy ASPER was clearly one of those," Mr. O'FARRELL said. "He brought an incredibly astute vision of what could be done and what should be done in the name of strengthening Canada's place both domestically and internationally."
Mr. O'FARRELL worked at CanWest for 12 years and said working for Mr. ASPER was stimulating. "It was absolutely a privilege to work with somebody who possessed the depth and the breadth of his intellectual curiosity and interests."
Mr. ASPER also provoked controversy over the years with his views on Israel and his drive to converge news coverage at CanWest's newspapers.
In 2002, he fired Russell MILLS, publisher of the Ottawa Citizen, after an apparent conflict over editorial independence. At the time, CanWest forced papers across the chain to carry editorials written by officials in the company's head office. The policy sparked a barrage of complaints about a lack of editorial freedom at the papers. The removal of Mr. MILLS prompted a wave of protests against CanWest from Parliament to media organizations around the world. Mr. MILLS sued and reached a settlement with the company a few months later.
Mr. ASPER's staunch defence of Israel also left him open to charges that CanWest's papers do not fairly cover events in the Middle East. In a speech last year, he attacked media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and accused several media outlets of having an anti-Israel bias. He singled out coverage by CNN, The New York Times, British Broadcasting Corp. and Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and said anti-Israel bias was a "cancer" destroying media credibility.
He has often criticized the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in particular for what he has called the broadcaster's anti-Israel coverage. Yesterday, a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. official declined to comment on Mr. ASPER's views.
Still, amid the controversy, Christopher DORNAN, director of Carleton University's School of Journalism and Communication, praised Mr. ASPER's role in Canadian journalism.
"We're still, in the entertainment area, overshadowed by the exports of the juggernaut to the south. What's really ours is non-fiction, it's journalism... in as much as Israel ASPER built CanWest into a major, major player in that sector, his contribution is clearly significant."
Added Mr. DORNAN: " There are uncharitable souls that would argue that CanWest's contribution to the Canadian cultural landscape was negligible.
"Because when CanWest built itself as a network, in the early days, it was known as The Love Boat Network -- all they did was buy cheap, populist American programming, got ratings and contributed very little to Canadian cultural production. They made very little programming of their own and what they did make was in grudging compliance with Canadian content regulations," he said.
Mr. DORNAN argued that the Canadian media industry is not about keeping the Americans at bay, but instead about funnelling in highly desired American content in the most advantageous way possible.
Mr. ASPER built a television network that now employs "people from network executives to janitors. Those jobs would not have existed had he not done that. And now, of course, they do actually make some programming," Mr. DORNAN said.
Vince CARLIN, chairman of the School of Journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto, agreed, noting that history books won't likely describe him as a great endorser of Canadian culture.
"That's not what he was about. He was a businessman," said Mr. CARLIN, the former head of Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Newsworld, who had met with Mr. ASPER on numerous occasions.
"He learned how to use those [business] skills to create very dynamic business enterprises, but [CanWest] would never put cultural considerations ahead of business considerations," Mr. CARLIN said.
He explained how in his company's early days, Mr. ASPER insisted to government officials that his chain of television stations was not a "network" but instead a "system," because being dubbed a network was less advantageous from a business perspective. When regulations shifted, Mr. ASPER changed gears, calling the stations a network, Mr. CARLIN said.
Mr. ASPER was also involved in a bitter legal battle with Robert LANTOS, a prominent Toronto-based filmmaker. Mr. ASPER sued Mr. LANTOS for libel over comments he made during a speech in 1998. In the speech, Mr. LANTOS described Mr. ASPER as "the forces of darkness, whose greed is surpassed only by their hypocrisy." Mr. ASPER said the comments left the impression he was dishonest and disloyal.

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