Dear Editor,
Kudos to the Bowen Island Community Foundation (BICF) for producing Maggie’s Story about one of Bowen’s iconic individuals in so many ways (Undercurrent article, p. 12, July 4, 2014). To know her was to love, admire, and learn from her. Her principles were unquestionable as was her love for the Bowen Island community and the respect and decency she showed to others whether in agreement with them or not.
The book chronicles her incredible life of living, loving, and giving to causes that were important to her which have benefitted all of us on Bowen. I was most fortunate to meet Maggie during the early stages of the conception of the golf course, an initiative of which she was highly supportive. Oh how I enjoyed her stories about as a child, running barefoot through the trails at Cowan Point, some of which were on our public golf course, to meet the Lady Rose or Lady Pam as it docked at Seymour Bay to unload mail, food, building supplies, and passengers all destined for the Cowan Point community. How fitting the BICF’s promotion of the book is in the same issue of the Undercurrent promoting this year’s Steamship Days (July 11, 12 & 13). Here’s hoping a great number of Bowen Islanders will run barefoot, or otherwise, to Snug Cove to join in on the “good old days” celebration - Maggie would have loved it!
As to those trails, the book concludes with a reference to and a photograph of the memorial plaque the Bowen Island Golf Club spearheaded, including a memorial bench and dedication of a section of the perimeter walking trail around the golf course as Maggie’s Walk.
I think it wonderfully ironic our beautiful golf course, which Maggie was able to see and enjoy as a trail walker, is located on virtually the same parcel of land her grandfather, George Cowan, had proposed a nine hole course in the 1930s great depression era, so I don’t hesitate to say, “this one is for you our dear Maggie.”
R.B. (Bruce) Russell
