Born in Nanaimo, British Columbia in Canada from families having British, Scottish and Norwegian ancestry who came to British Columbia about 1900 to work in the forest industries. I grew up in British Columbia and saw much of it with our family through vacations and travel. In the 50’s we crossed Canada many times visiting relatives in New Brunswick. My grandmother, an artist, was born in Truro NS, however she later built a little log house on Gabriola Island just of the coast of Nanaimo in the Salish Sea.

In my later teens we moved to Ottawa. My father was an engineer working for the Department of National Defense and was transferred to DND IN Ottawa. The family became interested in farming and much of my formative years were spent working on the farm driving machines which I learned to do even before I got my drivers licence. I learned a lot from my dad.

Before and after a degree received from Carleton University I worked for most of my career in a bank, retiring to a farm which we made organic growing principally soybeans and barley. Our family saw much of Canada and the US through many different and informative vacations very year. We finally retired for good, and for some inexplicable reason I decided to try writing poetry. I of course knew nothing about writing, much less about writing poetry, and wouldn’t know the difference between iambic pentameter or simple rhyme.

My poems involved writing about experiences in my early life and fond memories of my youth. However the signs of our times saw me taking a more critical and historical approach to subject matter and now poems include some anger at the continuing strife, injustice, war and misinformation in the world today. I have read widely throughout my life and of course such experiences drawn from books by many authors gave much perspective to the signs of our times.

After retirement we visited many places in Europe including Istambul, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, Italy and England. However, Canada is home.

My poems about Canada reflect a deep reverence for my country, but also there is critical writing about some of the terrible events that have occurred especially with the First Nations People

The book “From North Of The 49th” explores many topics drawn from my own experiences in British Columbia and Nova Scotia, history, current events, and the signs of our times and events that affect us all. I find that history is a topic that is easily forgotten, especially when considering the ongoing violence in the world today. It seems man easily forgets blood and destruction perpetrated in the past and carried forward to now.