Well-known environmentalist, filmmaker and author Mike Poole died July 13 from complications of prostate cancer. Poole was 74.
Poole was born in St. John, N.B. and came to the Sunshine Coast in 1943. In a 2006 autobiography he wrote for Harbour Publishing, Poole opined he had been set down in a "Huck Finn paradise."
His father and three brothers, whom Poole said had never been on the briny before, had bought a derelict tugboat and then launched into the beachcombing business. And while the new life was hell for his "cosseted" mother, it was heaven for the boy.
Through his childhood on the Coast, Poole learned everything he needed to be resourceful in his new life - building boats, canoes and houses.
As do most teenagers on the Coast, Poole left for the big city. There he got work at the Vancouver Sun as copy runner. Poole didn't exactly heap words of praise on his old employer, but at any rate, he decided to get a journalism education. With his maternal grandparents' help, he ended up going to Washington and Lee, "a quirky, little place stuck in a Confederate time warp in the lovely town of Lexington" (Virginia). There he squeezed four years of journalism into three years and came back (he thought) to his old job at The Sun. However, when he arrived home, he discovered the economy was in one of its cyclical toilets, and he had a letter reneging on the job.
In the mid-'60s he got a TV commentator's job at CBC Vancouver. He was hired as host of Country Calendar, a job rife with manure and little prestige. Poole enjoyed meeting the farmers, but didn't like being in front of the camera, so within 18 months, he had found a job behind the camera in production.
From there, his environmentalist work took off. He did a report on the displacement of Native people by the Bennett Dam in northeast B.C. That got him noticed by the displeased Socred government of the day. The piece ended up winning the CBC's Wilderness Award for the year's best documentary.
He later spent two decades as a freelance filmmaker, working frequently with David Suzuki. During the 1980s, Poole also filmed several episodes of The Beachcombers.
He was also an author. His book, Romancing Mary Jane: A year in the Life of a Failed Marijuana Grower, won the Edna Staebler Award, the Canadian literary award for creative nonfiction in 1999.
Poole was passionately interested in environmental issues on the Coast. He was the media spokesperson for Save Our Sunshine Coast (SOSC), a group that formed in response to a mining company a few years ago.
SOSC member Eleanor Lenz said he represented the organization with "eloquence and professionalism."
Another of Poole's legacies is the recovery of more than 90 heirloom apple varieties - a feat, Poole said, that resulted in the apple varieties finding their way to orchards all over southwestern B.C.
In 2009, in a serendipitous twist of fate, Poole was reunited with a son, Ian McLatchie, when McLatchie (who is married to a Sunshine Coaster) moved here. The relationship took root right away. In addition to McLatchie, Poole is survived by his wife Carole, two sons, a daughter and a stepdaughter.
"[Poole] was somebody who never drifted very far from his Sunshine Coast roots," McLatchie said. "He had a deep and abiding love of nature. His upbringing was key for everything he did in his life. He had remarkable self-sufficiency."
A celebration of Poole's life will be held on Sunday, Sept. 12, 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., at the Pender Harbour School of Music.
