Clay used to tell stories about the early days in town. One of his favourite stories was how, back in the day, when you went into the restaurant—there was only one— and there was two of you that went in at lunch time, you just did not expect to have a table. There might be a chair over there, and there might be another free chair over here, so that’s where you went. You didn’t try to sit together for lunch, because if you did, you’d never get a table.
I first met Clay up at the mine. I worked for Kal Tire, and he was an operations foreman up there. I knew that he was very efficient, and very fair. That’s the one thing that I heard when I talked to people on his crew, and he was well liked there.
He eventually retired from that, and he ended up as the mayor.
At that time, things were rolling right along, until all of a sudden, they weren’t. And that’s where Clay really showed his stripes.
He was sitting in town hall, with Fred Banham, the administrator at the time, and they were talking about what to do. Clay said, “Fred, these houses around town. They have broken windows, and their lawns are unkempt, and CMHC will not sell them, and I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I know I’ve got to do something.”
He found out that there was going to be a conference in Ontario. I forget exactly which town, but I think it was Kitchener. And he knew the Federal Housing Minister was going to be there. So Clay said, “I’m going to go there and talk to the Housing Minister. I don’t have an appointment, but I’m going to make sure that I see him, and tell him our story.”
Well, he and Fern got on a train, because he didn’t like flying. When they arrived there, he got a motel room. He figured out where the conference was was, and he found out where the housing minister was staying, and he knew he was staying across the street from the conference hall. So Clay just waited there, outside of the conference. Knowing the minister would be coming out and going to his hotel room. When he did, Clay ambushed him. Clay introduced himself and said “you probably don’t remember me,” and the minister said “well sure I do. I met you down in Victoria. I definitely know who you are, and I know your plight.”
I wasn’t there, so I can’t tell you what they said, but at the end of the conversation, the Minister said, “it’s a done deal, the houses will be sold, and that’s that, you’ve got my word.”
So they shook hands and Clay and Fern got on the train. But Clay was worried that he wouldn’t remember. They got back as far as Winnipeg, and Clay said “I just can’t believe that that’s going to happen that quick after all the fighting we did.” He told Fern he was going to go back to Ottawa to make sure he lived up to his deal.
He called town hall and talked to Fred Banham, and he told Fred what his plan was. And Fred asked why he was going to do that. Clay told him he wanted to make sure it would happen, and Fred said “it’s already happened. It’s a done deal.” He had got the notice from the Minister’s office that the houses would be sold.
The next big thing he did was make sure the houses couldn’t be moved out of Tumbler Ridge. He got after council and got a bylaw passed that made it so difficult that nobody could afford to do it.
That’s what he’s best known for, but I had been working on the community forest, trying to get it up and running for seven or eight years. I wasn’t getting the interest because this was a coal town, as everybody knows. And I couldn’t get any interest from town hall until finally I got an appointment with Clay. And I said, “Clay, we should have a community forest.” And he got quite interested.
I was a horse logger, and right around that time, horse logging was having trouble with the new liberal government at that time. So I went to a meeting held by the Horse Loggers Association with the forestry minister, Michael DeJong. It was held in Fort St. John. I went there and told the minister my story and what we wanted to do, as far as horse logging is concerned. And the minister said why doesn’t your town put in for a community forest? I told him there was an application that the town had put in but it hadn’t got anywhere yet.
He said, “I’ll tell you what, you push it from your end. And when it comes to my end, I’ll push it, too.”
So a few weeks later, I got a phone call from the deputy minister saying they wanted to have a meeting in Tumbler Ridge to talk about the community forest. He asked if I could arrange it. I said, certainly.
So I went to Clay, of course. And of course, Clay, being Clay was, like: “What in the hell are they calling you for?” He said, “I’m the mayor of this damn town.”
That’s just the way he was. But when I asked if we could do the meeting, he was all for it. And he really pushed it along until eventually the community forest got approved. At one point they wanted to push it off onto a professional to get it going. And Clay said, no. He said, this is staying right here. “Harry’s worked on this for so long,” he said, “and that’s the way it’s going to be.”
We shared a birthday. He always thought we were exactly the same age, but I’m a year older.
The best thing about Clay was he was just a regular guy. I would go and visit him and Fern when they had the Twilight Lodge, and we would just sit and talk. Of course, Clay was the kind of guy, who could talk to anybody anywhere at any time. It didn’t matter if he met you walking along the street, whatever. Clay was the easiest person to talk to that I’ve ever met.
