A10 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, February 12, 1997

_. TERRACE STANDARD

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638.7283

DAVE TAYLOR

ROB BROWN

Ed Chapplow

e sat ona rocky outcrop, a rampart;

part of Terrace Mountain that over-

looks my backyard. We smoked

cigars and drank beer, hidden by

the trees like a pair of schoolboys exploring

lurid and forbidden mystery of intoxicants after

a raid on father’s supplies. Ed talked about

Namu, of the board walks and canneries seen

through the eyes of a boy. He spoke of cougars

and eagles and salmon, of the sca. The reminis-

_ cences were those of a boy looking outward. He

didn’t talk about his family; in all the hours we

spent logether, he never did. I got the feeling

that Ed’s wasn’t the most pleasant of upbring-
ings, I can’t say for sure.

] can say that his working life was tough. Ed
built bridges for a jong time. He was wiry but
small. He worked hard Jong hours in places like
Kwinamass and the lower Nass in a time when
people didn’t know much about the long term
injury, about how the body broke down over
time under the weight of heavy labour. There
were inore obvious and immediate injuries too.

One time Ed fell from a span and smashed
some bones to bits. There were other injuries
too, ‘‘Ed was accident prone,’’ said Finlay,
meaning nothing more than he had the mis-
fortune to be at the wrong place at the wrong
time a lot of times.

When Ed toiled to earn money to taise his
family people didn’t think about fat-free dicts.
Whether smoking was a health hazard was a
topic of hot debate. By the time Ed’s body
‘started having trouble keeping up with him his
nicotine habit was up to over two packs a day.
By that lime he was living alone, delivering
mail, living in a basement suite, and fishing
every chance he gol.

Ed, a fine fisherman and fine fly dresser, was
one of the first anglers to put away all the olher
rods and devote himself to flyfishing exclusive-
ly. Skeena angling pioneer Ted Rawlins, Ed’s
mentor, was instrumental in that decision. Ironi-
cally it was at Ted's favourite piece of water,
the sweet runa mile above the Clore that we got
an inkling that things weren't right with Ed,

Webb was alarmed when he told me he and
Ed had gone to Rawlin’s in search of steelhead
and Ed was barely able to make the short trip
over the cobble to river. After thal the winter of
9S arrived, The sky got closer to the ground.
The days gol shorter and colder. For Ed Chap-
plow the pain gripped harder and tighter. He
struggled up the stairs ta the street and walked
around the block each night. I visited. Two,
sometiines three times a week we drank coffee
and tied flies. We talked fishing. Ed tried to
forget the pain. The circulation through his con-
gested arteries was a trickle.

He got a referral to Dr. Slancy, a renowned

specialist and, as it tumed out, an avid
flyGisherman. After extracting the promise of a
guided trip for sockeye, the good doctor told Ed
to quit smoking. “I can’t quit after 40 years,’’
said Ed. The very real threat of double leg
amputation convinced him otherwise,

Ed suffered until the partial relief of a bypass.
Another intervention was slated. Ed's truck was
down by this time. We went grocery shopping
together, We fished together. Ed looked almost
mobile when we went out to the Lakelse after
coho. [ couldn't buy a fish, but Ed got one
without spending a cent: a big bright male he in-
sisted on cooking for us. Doug took him to Bar-
rett Lake where, he told me, he had the best
fishing trip of his life.

The year before, I’d alerted Ed to the large
summer steclhead that enter the Zymoetz early
in the summer, the best fish of the run that can
be had when the water is right. We had the river
to ourselves that year, and we did well catching
summer coho and steelhead that had our hearts
in out throats.

The next August, Ed had some of the best
summer steelhead fishing of his life oa the
lower Zymoetz, fishing the way he liked best,
with a floating line and a wet fly.

With only a few weeks left to wait before his
second operation, the one that would probably
have saved him, Ed called a taxi to take him
shopping, Enroute be bad a massive heart at-
tack. At one point the doctors worked for three-
quarters of an hour to keep his heart beating, [1
beat for a few months more. There were a few

‘faint glimmers of hope, before Ed finally
checked out of the Kitimat Hospital for good
last summer.

Ed Chepplow, stoic and uncomplaining, able
to endure suffering few could, a stralght shooter
without artifice and with-no tolerance for dis-
honesty is missed by his angling cronics,

Faces
of the

Games

MORE THAN 25 sports over three days.
That gave spectators plenty of events to
choose from this past weekend as the 1997
Northern B.C. Winter Games rolled into Ter-
race. Fans headed out to the venues in
droves to see everything from archery to
wrestling, and they weren't disappointed.
The competition was tough, making for both
heartbreaking losses and thrilling victories.
At the top, wrestlers at Thornhill Elementary
gave fans lots to cheers for as they flipped
and twisted each other, looking for a pin.
Clockwise on the right, jujitsu competitors
squared off at E,T. Kenney school. The
event combined Kata and exciting sparring
competitions with self defence demonstra-
tions. On the bottom right, the Terrace Old-
timers were up against Prince Rupert in a
water polo match Friday night. And below, a

shot just grazes Vanderhoof's post in ao

women’s indoor soccer game that saw
Quesnel pitted against Vanderhoof at the
Kitsumkalum community centre.

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