Acclaimed local author mourned
One of Prince George’s finest pens has run out of ink.
Prolific local writer Jack Boudreau died Jan. 19 after a prolonged illness.
He was the author of 10 books, all of them on the region’s history and personalities, and he was a lifelong resident of the area until he spent the last few years of his life in Alberta to be close to his daughter Kim and his granddaughters Morgan and Paige.
Boudreau was born on Feb. 4, 1933, and was raised in the rural community of Penny in a family of five girls and three boys. It was an active outdoors life alongside the Fraser River and the CN Rail tracks, with a backyard as big as the McGregor Mountains. It was remotely located east of Prince George, but still had a bustling community of backcountry personalities – trappers, loggers, hunters, and other wilderness dwellers. Many of them would come to Penny and visit with the Boudreau family.
“Jack was always glued to them, listening to what the old trappers and loggers would talk about,” said his brother Clarence. “He started writing it down when he was just a kid, I’d be guessing about 15. Then, when he was about 20, he started to deliberately going to interview them and get their stories collected.”
His journalistic curiosity was evident throughout his life, but he pursued more practical career paths for a man raised in the forest. He was a licensed scaler, an industrial first-aid attendant, and forest firefighter mostly with the Ministry of Forests. He also raised Kim and his son Kelly in those earlier years.
Upon retirement, he found the time to arrange all those stories he got from the mountain people of the area. His lifelong affinity for human narrative finally got the traction it needed. In 1999, he became an author for the first time with the book Crazy Man’s Creek. It was an instant hit with local publishing company Caitlin Press.
“What set Jack apart was how authentic his stories were,” said Vici Johnstone, owner of Caitlin Press. “He wrote about things he experienced himself or he went out and talked directly to people who lived lives that few other people ever do or can. He brought some great perspectives to the audience – stories that couldn’t really be told by anyone else.”
Johnstone said she has never halted printing on a single one of his 10 books.
“To this day, even his earlier books are among our bestsellers,” she said, adding that he did her a personal favour when she purchased the company about 10 years ago. He immediately came forward with a new book to publish, knowing the bump in sales it would generate and get her investment off to a healthy start.
“He was still coming to me with ideas for new projects,” she said.
“He was tireless.”
Johnstone knew him to be generous with his time, as well, for other authors interested in local history. Jay Sherwood, who has written seven books of his own, was one in particular who struck a close friendship with him and shared notes and research techniques.
Clarence said his brother had a simple skill that guided his writing. “Jack had a knack for separating the good from the bad from the bullshit.”
This might have been a tall order, considering the flamboyant family life they led. Clarence remembers once when the two of them concocted a conversation deliberately loud enough for their younger sister Margaret to overhear. The brothers explained to each other that the family was really low on meat, so they would probably have to eat Margaret that winter in order to get by. That sent the tot screaming in fear and grief to their mother who had to console her and set the poor kid’s record straight.
So colourful storytelling was a part of his life from the beginning.
So was music. Lesser known was Boudreau’s own songwriting skills, but he leaves behind a few tunes for posterity. And one other written and recorded by singer-songwriter James J. Robinson was inspired by Boudreau. The song Canyon Cats was based on an account of the Fraser River whitewater cargo shippers that Boudreau documented in the book Sternwheelers And Canyon Cats.
A memorial service will be held for Boudreau on Feb. 3 at Vanier Hall at 2 p.m. Clarence joked about selling tickets at the door and not telling anyone else in the family. His brother would have surely approved, as long as he were cut in on the box office proceeds.