When we started planning the trip, I resurrected my Facebook account to see if I could connect with some of my Polaris colleagues from back in the ‘90’s. It was great to see Marc and Pat in Calgary. We hope to see a few more on the way home, and it was nice that Charlie Dyer reached out too.
Charlie and I are around the same age. He started at Polaris a few years before me, as an electrician.
It was great hearing Charlie’s Polaris stories – ones I had never heard, others that I had, but from a different perspective.
There were some common themes – how Polaris gave a bunch of us a financial head start that changed our lives, how we wound up with levels of responsibility far beyond what we would see in the south, and how incredibly capable many of our colleagues were. Just like our night with Pat and Marc, we could have talked for days.
It’s pretty obvious that Charlie took full advantage of his time at Polaris. He met his wife Shein there. Shein is an engineer and worked in the concentrator after I transferred to Cominco’s head office in Vancouver. It was nice that we could meet and get to know her.
Charlie and Shein have an amazing property on the banks of the St. John River, just south of Bear Island (which really isn’t an island, I don’t think). It’s a working farm, and it was really cool to see how much effort and resources go into it, and how well they care for the animals and their four dogs.
It takes a lot of work to look after a farm. And on top of this, they are running two busy companies, one a renovation/construction company and the other a restoration franchise. With all the Atlantic Canada hurricanes and weather craziness, both companies are super busy. Very impressive.
It was a quick visit, and a very nice one. But we couldn’t linger for too long. The morning we left, hurricane Lee was already kicking up high winds and it had started to rain as it made its way to New Brunswick, heading head straight for our next destination which was Moncton.
Thanks guys for the visit and shelter from the coming storm!
Two Sore Backs 
Leave a comment