CHARLES HELM
Friends and colleagues gathered for a farewell dinner for Dr. Nigel Mathews on August 27. Nigel has been doing locums in Tumbler Ridge for over 25 years. His most recent locum will be his last, as he has decided that he has reached retirement age.
While many in the community may not have met Mathews, he has left his mark on the community in many ways. First is the compassion with which he has treated his many Tumbler Ridge patients over this time period. While he acknowledges a special affection for young babies, his compassion for all ages has always been evident, combined with his clinical skills which have led to numerous life-saving incidents over the years.
On August 10 Nigel was the on-site physician for the Emperor’s Challenge; after, colleagues joked with him that retirement is the only way to go, as this demanding job is the pinnacle of his medical career. Of all Nigel’s accomplishments in Tumbler Ridge, inventing the Emperor’s Challenge clearly has had the most profound long-term impact on the community and region. In appreciation of his foresight, he was bestowed with his own unique five year in-perpetuity bib. At his request it was embroidered with the numbers 00 (representing, he claims, the sum total of his medical knowledge). He was to be seen at this year’s Emperor’s Challenge wearing that coveted bib with pride.
The Emperor’s Challenge book describes him as “eccentric, lovable and dedicated” (his wonderful wife Shelley said she recognized the first of those three epithets). These attributes served him well during his Tumbler Ridge sojourns. He led the drive for commemorative plaques on memorial benches for Dr. Paul Jurgens and for Don Nesbitt.
His love of birds led to the addition of many new species on the Tumbler Ridge checklist. He was not content just to hike the Tumbler Ridge trails—wherever he found a problem he would fix it, often working alone through the night on the trails when he was not on call. He once fell down a waterfall near Windfall Lake, once got benighted on the summit of Mt. Crum with only a dog to help him stay warm through the freezing night, and even once accidentally started a forest fire.
When he heard of others in trouble, he would spring into action. After he treated two mountaineers following an epic misadventure on Bulley Glacier Peak, and on learning that they had had to abandon their equipment at the foot of the mountain, Nigel took the first opportunity to go and retrieve it. He achieved in a single day what takes ordinary mortals three days, and was soon able to return it to them.
Nigel is a legendary story-teller, who once enthralled an Itchy feet audience of his global travel exploits. For those who know him well, he has likewise become a legendary figure in Tumbler Ridge. His innovative contribution to medical care in Tumbler Ridge will be sorely missed. He assures us that he and Shelley will be back soon, not to work, but just to enjoy the trails and everything else that Tumbler Ridge has to offer. He was presented with the deluxe version of a dinosaur footprint as a parting gift.
In responding to the speeches that were made in his honour, Nigel read a poem he had written for the occasion. It was entitled “Me”, but it really dealt with his love of community. Excerpts include:
“The magnificence of the surrounding scene, one of the most remarkable places I’ve ever been,
It’s the people here who keep me coming back, everyone’s so friendly and little do they lack,
And so it’s time to say farewell; you’re lucky in Tumbler Ridge to dwell;
Although soon I shall be free, I hope it’s not the last you’ll be seeing of me…
Profound words that all present echoed and applauded.
