Arlene McArthur looks out the window of her spotless Brackendale home, where she has lived for 65 years, gesturing toward Mount Thyestes.
This mountain has been a constant companion, she says.
She even named her self-published memoir after it, titling it, In the Shadow of the Mountain.
"The mountain; it is always there—but sometimes it is not. It is always the same, and yet it is never the same," she writes in the forward of her book, which was published in 2013.
"It has been a protector, confiner, weather predicter and comforter."
In front of McArthur, who turns 90 next year, on her wooden kitchen table, are photo albums of a life well lived, full of family, nature and faith.
Early years
McArthur, who was born in Alberta but grew up in Cloverdale, is OG Squamish. She arrived on Feb. 4, 1954, a new bride of seven months.
She sailed here via the Lady Cynthia, arriving at the Squamish Government Wharf, having sailed from the Union Steamships dock in Vancouver.
Though there was a fancy lunch onboard, she had been too nervous to eat.
She and her new husband, Jim, were coming to the area to help expand a branch of the Jehovah's Witness church.
"It was unassigned; there was no congregation here. There was no Kingdom Hall or anything. So we just came up to help out," she told The Squamish Chief.
Picked up by a friend at the dock, the young couple made their way to Brackendale by car.
"Mud puddles filled the potholes and ruts as we splashed along," she writes.
"We passed a few buildings, but I didn't see any sign of the town. 'How far to Squamish,' I asked. 'You just went through it,' was the answer."
The memoir is filled with delicious tidbits, such as the fact a Brackendale property would go for $375 when she was a new resident.
And the McArthurs had a hand in naming the street their current house sits on after the Axens.
"They lived over on Government Road; they never lived on this road, but they lived around. They had a lot to do in this area," McArthur said.
The idea had been floated by officials to name the road McArthur, but she and Jim didn’t want that, so instead, they asked it to be named Axen.
"Mr. Axen worked hard at getting the municipality to build a dike along the Squamish River to stop the erosion that was eating a lot of land every year,” McArthur said.
Small town charm
Though a tiny community, Squamish had a movie theatre for a time.
Starlight Theatre was operated by the Leeworthys.
"He ran the projector and she ran the show," McArthur recalls, noting that Mrs. Leeworthy wouldn’t allow any funny business, kicking out any teens that interrupted the showing.
Dogs were loose around town, McArthur recalls, noting you would go downtown and see them roaming around, mostly welcomed by locals.
But some canine encounters weren’t so pleasant.
"I was walking along the road, and the dog came out and tried to get behind me. I hadn't paid much attention when I first saw the dog—because it wasn't barking—until it grabbed the back of my leg," she wrote.
She called the dog's owner, Mrs. Patterson and told her what happened.
"'Oh! He's always doing that,'" the owner replied.
"Unfortunately for the dog, he bit a child from the nearby school one day, and that was the end of the dog,” McArthur said.
Changes
For a city girl, it was quite an adjustment to be in the more rural and rugged corridor, but there were plenty of upsides, she recalls.
"We had no traffic lights or even any neon signs to speak of. There was no radio station and, for sure, no TV station. But we also had no need to lock our doors. If we didn't know everyone, we certainly knew most of the people. We had one policeman and his job was mostly filling out birth and death certificates," she said.
The McArthurs had five children, four boys and a girl, all born at Squamish Hospital.
Her book is filled with other happy memories, such as skiing at the "small ski hill" that opened in Whistler.
There was heartache, too, such as the death of their son Nathan when the young man’s truck hit a tree on July 25, 1982.
And the death of her beloved Jim a few years after her book was published.
One of McArthur's favourite activities was hiking. In particular to Black Tusk. "I would go tomorrow if my legs would still take me there," she wrote.
The family hiked and camped all over the region.
McArthur also loved the hike to Elfin Lakes.
The plentiful red heather at Diamond Head is a vivid and colourful memory.
She recalls that going on a hike simply meant driving up to wherever you wanted to go, parking with ease, letting out the dogs and the kids and doing whatever you wanted, no crowded parking lot or trails or leashed dogs.
Reflecting on the changes in Squamish, McArthur sees the good and the not-so-good in progress over the time she has lived here.
"Some good things, like when we first moved into this house ... we had no electricity, no plumbing. So, you know, we had to bring in water and heat it up on the stove, and we had to go out to the toilet," she recalled.
"Now, we've got that, and we've got good roads; in those times, it was just gravel roads, not even gravel, it was just dirt. ... And, if you walk down the road, you were choking on the dust that logging trucks were making."
On the other hand, it was easier to be a young couple without much money in town and still make a go of it, she said.
"We didn't have much money, you know, and so what we did, we just built the house and moved in. There were no doors, there was nothing on the floors, but you can't do that now. Now you have to build a complete house and have it inspected and OK'd and everything, and young people just can't do that because they can't make enough money to finish a house, and even renting is so expensive now. It's very hard for young people."
Through it all, the changes, ups and downs, the mountain, along with her family, nature and her faith, has been her constant.
“We have enjoyed its protection, its moods, its solidarity, and its beauty over the years. We hope and intend to stay close to it for as long as we can,” she says, in the closing of her book.
While In the Shadow of the Mountain is not available in any library, The Squamish Chief will keep a copy at its Second Avenue office for a couple of weeks for folks who want to come by and look through it for a bit of local history.
‘About a local’ is a regular column about an interesting resident. If you have someone who you think would be a good fit for this column (and said person agrees) let us know at [email protected].
