DEBATES OF LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY (Hansard), Wednesday, April 21, 2010 - Two Minute Statement
It gives me great pleasure to rise today in this House and speak of one of Sooke's finest residents, Maywell Wickheim, who has been active in countless organizations up and down Vancouver Island and has spent most of his life contributing to the welfare of others and to his community. He has been nominated for the Order of B.C. and, in my opinion, is a most deserving recipient of that award.
Born in 1925, Maywell was the oldest of six children born to a Norwegian homesteading family with a family income of about $34 in the 1930s. Maywell has memories of milking cows, knitting socks and repairing his own leather boots, all before the age of ten. Though he only completed 5½ years of school, Maywell is a voracious reader, and he takes great pleasure in reading such things as the World Book of Knowledge and the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
He spent his working life in the woods, as a foreman on construction sites and eventually as the owner of a Sooke shipyard serving the growing fishing fleet and the tugboats along the coast of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Accustomed to hundred-hour workweeks in his youth, he's cut back to about 40 hours a week now that he's in his eighth decade. A faller, a farmer, a foreman, a shipbuilder, a machinist, a scuba diver — there's not much that Maywell has not done.
In the back country his kinship with the plants and animals of the Sooke Hills is legendary, but his passion is doing community work. An experienced outdoorsman, Maywell is affectionately called the Big Tree Guy as he searches the Island for the biggest and oldest trees he can find.
He helped establish the San Juan Ridge hiking trail and installed extensive boardwalk systems throughout the Sooke Hills. He leads search and rescue operations in his 85th year, and he also conducts many guiding tours up the rivers of the Sooke Hills and into the ocean of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
He has a deep connection with the T'Sou-ke Nation and has worked with them building canoes and paddles and participating in many tribal journeys. He's active at the Sooke Fine Arts Show, the regional museum, the Sooke fire department and the Sooke Cooperative Association of Service Agencies. He's been happily married to Betty for 60 years. Maywell lives by the creed "Give what you can, and only take what you need."
