Thank you for the article in the last issue on Ewen Nelson, who I was honoured to know for the last 11 years of his life.

Though I appreciated the article’s highlight of all the official work he did, my memories of Ewen are of a man who loved food, wine and music.

Ewen was apprenticing as a chef, when he suffered the injury that made him a quadriplegic. Though he could not continue this career, Ewen remained a chef at heart. He enjoyed wheeling to the farmer’s market to buy ingredients, directing the cooking and enjoying the feast with wine and friends.

Some of my fondest memories of Ewen took place at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. We’d enjoy music together and then I’d walk alongside him as he wheeled back to his place in Boyle Street and me to my home in McCauley.

The last Folk Fest he attended, Ewen and I walked home in a heavy, cold rainstorm. He got a cold from that expedition and after that seemed to suffer one health setback after another that fall until his death that January.

Sometimes I wonder about the wisdom of being out in the pounding rain, but Ewen was not one to shrink from living life to the fullest. His zest for life and care for others (including his cats) remain an inspiration to me.

Sincerely yours,
Harvey Voogd