“Over all it was like a big gathering of young kids learning how to grow up in life. That is exactly what we were - a bunch of young kids.”

After moving from a big city in Ontario to small-town BC, Bob and Audrey experienced a little culture shock, but they toughed it out and both took the plunge into new careers at Island Copper in Port Hardy.

Audrey’s Story

“Bob and I are from Hamilton, Ontario, which is a steel city in the heavily industrialized area around the Great Lakes. We came out to visit Bob’s mother in Port Hardy in 1975; it was so fantastic to come out and see the mountains and oceans. We had never seen anything like it before.

“When we came out our son, Jeremy, was only two months old and the first day I went to the drug store to get Wet Ones that I had paid ninety-eight cents for in Hamilton, I got a culture shock, the same item was a dollar ninety eight here. Prices were high, but there were some particularly high paying jobs.

“The adjustment was hard because we had a new baby. I often asked myself, ‘oh my God, what did I do?’ There was a baby brigade on payday - young housewives pushing strollers with babies, walking three wide down the gravel hill to the post office, to pick up their husbands’ cheques and deposit them.