While Ming Neil's 34 years with the BC Parks Service did not make her a millionaire, it made her “rich in a different way."
At an event in B.C.’s Princess Louisa Marine Park Aug. 13, celebrating in part Ming's retirement, Ming said her work had been more of a “passion” than a job. For the last 24 years of her career, Ming was the seasonal resident park ranger at the spectacular location.
“I didn’t know anything about boating or the boating world when I applied for the job,” Ming recalled with a quiet grin. Originally from Kimberly in the Kootenays, she had spent the majority of her first decade with BC Parks in Garbaldi Park.
“But my boss brought me into Princess Louisa after I won a competition for the job. When we came around the corner to the head of the inlet, I was hooked,” she said.
“This place changes all the time. You get a day of rain and the whole place changes, the walls start weeping," said Ming. "Twenty-four years and I would wake up every day excited. Each day I would see something new; I never became complacent.”
The inlet became Ming's second home for six to seven months each year, with days filled with “people management” duties.
“I would greet every boat as it arrived," said Ming, noting that she would share background on the park’s history with those on board and let them know about the rules that were in place. That practice “made it easier for all of us," she said.
Ming's park ranger duties encompassed on-site management of the park’s 200-metre mooring float at Chatterbox Falls, which also accommodates float planes. There were also boat or walk-in campsites, trails, informational signage and outhouses to be maintained.
Unable to pinpoint a favourite memory during her brief interview with Coast Reporter, Ming said what stood out most to her was “the great people I have met over the years."
Other guests who travelled to the inlet to wish Ming well in her retirement included several recreational boaters from Seattle, members of the Princess Louisa International Society and local MLA Randene Neill.
In her remarks at the event, the MLA told Ming that the fact that people travelled in for her farewell event “was a testament to the kind of person you are and what you mean to visitors."
“The BC public service has many extraordinary people, especially our Park rangers. We should all be so proud of how they steward these lands above and beyond any pay that they get; they do it because they love it and want to leave it for future generations,” Neill told Coast Reporter.
As for Princess Louisa’s former ranger, she has returned to Kimberley, enjoying time on her bicycle, working her 10-acre hobby farm of land and preparing for alpine ski season.
