A Copper Island Christmas

If a picture is worth a thousand words, I won't need to write much this month, because this photo is worth 10,000 at least. Inger couldn't have sent it at a better time:

"Santa" Nelson with Dave at the apartment in Coquitlam, mid-1990s.

Don and Patty made Nelson's Christmas bright in 1983. They came to Copper Island with Rick on the Lady Rose, bringing a tree and decorations made for the occasion, and a new baby (but no manger). 

Patty remembers, "Nelson always wore his same old clothes during the week, and then Sunday he would wear a nice shirt and pants. We all thought he could use a new shirt or pants for Christmas. He opened his gifts and was very thankful. But before the day ended, to our surprise he opened a cupboard to put them away and it was loaded with a collection of new shirts and pants still in their packages! His comment was that the clothes he had been wearing weren't worn out yet!"

Perhaps Nelson is remembering here the Christmas of 1953 when Harold Peters, Percy Wills and Earl Johnson came on the Messenger III to the Dunkin family floathouse in Kildonan with a Christmas tree tied to the mast and another onboard for their children to decorate:

This is from the Life Magazine article on the Shantymen and the Messenger III, which you can find here.

Christmas might also have brought to mind Nelson and Mina's adventure in the Port Alberni Inlet near the Christmas of 1950, so well documented by R. Bruce Scott in his book, The People of the Southwest Coast of Vancouver Island, in the chapter which was reprinted in Nelson's biography:

Maybe you will want to give the "Christmas Adventure" chapter another read this Christmas! Or, if you don't have a copy of The Island and i (or have a friend for whom it would be a great Christmas gift), you can purchase it here. All proceeds still go toward kids getting to camp this summer.

If Nelson were still with us, I know he would wish you all a very merry Christmas!

Coming Up: A photo essay by Margaret Stewart—from the Isle of Lewis off the coast of Scotland—on Mina and her homeland and background.