Wednesday 26 April 2023

Peter the Hermit, A Robson Valley Character


     The photo shows the trail up Boulder Mountain.

    Because of it’s isolation, sparse population, its large expanse of wilderness areas, the Robson Valley has been the home of a lot of strange characters.  One of them was Peter, who was a hermit.  

    I ran into Peter in the late 1970’s, and even then he came off as being a bit strange.  It seems that before our move to McBride, he had been part of the migration of young people that moved to the here.       

    When Peter and his girlfriend moved to the Valley, they lived in a tent, and they were socially active with with their peers.  He was well educated and played classical guitar, although I never had an opportunity to hear him play.  It was rumored that he came from a wealthy family in the States and must have received some money from them, because he never held down a job.  It was after his girlfriend left him that he started his drift into isolation and became a hermit.

    After we had been in McBride for a while, I started hearing stories about Peter.  Every autumn, he would buy a lot of supplies, stock up on a lot of books, and then backpack up Boulder Mountain, where he spent the whole winter by himself, living alone and isolated in a small cabin.

    I assume he would periodically snowshoe down the mountain with his backpack, then hitch a ride 35 miles to McBride, to restock on supplies.  It always seemed strange to me that he would choose to spend the hard cold, snowy, long months of winter, alone and isolated, so far away from other people, but that was Peter.

    During the summer months we would occasionally run into Peter in the library.  We heard from the two elderly librarians, that they always felt insecure and a bit scared when Peter, with his dark long hair, beard, and backpack came into the library.


More about Peter tomorrow.

    

    


More about Peter tomorrow.


View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

    

    


 

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