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Davey Valleau: A life well lived

Routine road inspection ends in tragedy for logging family
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Davey Valleau, on bench with his wife Dianne, surround by the family he loved.

By Cindy FIlipenko

A routine trip to inspect a forestry road ended in tragedy April 27 for one of the Sea to Sky corridor’s most established logging families. Davey Valleau, 63, died as the result of a single vehicle accident on South Creek Forestry Road.

Valleau was reported missing at 1:30 a.m. on April 27 after he failed to return home. Members of the logger’s family, RCMP and Tribal Police, undertook the subsequent search. When their efforts failed to locate Valleau’s vehicle, the Pemberton RCMP called in Search and Rescue. The driverless vehicle was discovered off a steep embankment. At approximately 5 p.m. Valleau’s body was found on land approximately 1 km from where the accident occurred.

Those are the cold facts.

Beyond those facts is the story of the son of one of Whistler’s pioneering loggers. A man who worked tirelessly to sustain a family business that proved itself to be more than just another logging company. A man described as honest, caring and quick-witted. A man who will be greatly missed.

“He always worked his tail off, loved having family and friends around and spent much of his time pensively squatting in the yard. From what I know and understand, he was very tough but fair in work as he was in life. Everyone that he has worked with holds the utmost respect for him and all speak very highly of him,” said his son Dave.

One of those men is Stu McNulty.

McNulty worked for Valleau Logging for 30 years and knew Davey for close to 40. McNulty started out working for Davey’s dad, Laurence, in the ’60s when Whistler was still known as Alta Lake. He stayed with the company when it shifted its base to Pemberton in 1973 and Davey and his brother Rick took over.

“Working for the Valleaus, basically it was one extended family — the whole crew. That’s how his dad was and when he and his brother took over, it was how they were.”

According to his son, Pete, Davey had been paying into WCB since he was 15 years old. Asked if his dad had been close to retiring, Pete laughed, the idea of his dad quitting forestry obviously inconceivable — it was in his blood. Pete’s brother Dave, concurred.

“I first started working for my grandfather, Laurence, in the bush when I was about 13 years old for $12 per hour. The first thing my dad did the following summer when he took over after my grandfather retired was drop my wages down to $10 an hour thinking my grandfather was being too generous in his old age — which he probably was.

“My father got a kick out of teaching my brother, Peter, and I how to pack a block and strap up the hillside over the fell and buck — not our favourite job. Although neither my brother nor I are in the logging business, I have a huge appreciation for how difficult the work is and the pride they all take in what they do. He couldn’t have gone doing anything he liked more.”

But as longtime friend McNulty pointed out, Davey wasn’t only about work.

“In his younger year he was crazy and wild — like a lot of them. He was always level-headed at work, but there was after work…”

McNulty tells of a favourite practical joke young Davey liked to play on friends who had   imbibed too much. Once they’d passed out, he’d take their shoes and wallet, drive them out to Mt. Currie and then pay a couple he knew to let the buddy sleep it off on their couch. The poor guy would wake up unsure of where he was, broke and shoeless.

Dave also attests to his father’s sense of fun.

“Most of the funny stories I know or have heard about my father are probably inappropriate to write in a public paper, (here’s one) that I feel gives an idea of the fun-spirited person he was. Before the road was paved, my father and a few of his friends were on their way from Whistler to Squamish for a night on the town in their VW beetle.

“As the road was not paved and they were probably a little over anxious for some libations, the car skidded around the corner and into Brohm Lake. As any normal accident victims would initially do, they made sure nobody was injured. The second order of business was to retrieve the cargo of beer out of the vehicle from under the lake. They proceeded to dive down to the bug and get as many cans as they could hold until someone came along to take them to Squamish.”

Access to a fleet of logging trucks in Squamish allowed the men to drag the VW from the lake and save the rest of the beer.

“To this day we don’t know who was driving the bug, but we know that the accident didn’t really slow down their weekend plans as much as it should have,” said Dave.

One of McNulty’s favourite memories of Davey is of a far quieter, thoughtful man.

“Out there at work we’d stop and have a chat. I’d bum a smoke, we’d roll ’em and stand there, look around and just be contemplative.”

Over the years, the two men had supported each other, or as McNulty frames it, “We worked through many messes.”

When McNulty heard the news of Davey’s death his first thought was, “Seems he got into a mess I couldn’t help get him out of.”

The catch in McNulty’s voice is evidence of how much he wishes he could have gotten his friend out of his final mess.

“My father was a very genuine man, who worked very hard and loved his family. He didn’t care about material possessions apart from an old car or two that he could monkey-wrench around with,” said Dave.

“He once gave me some sage advice before I was going to university, which has stayed with me until this day and it is something I will pass on to my children. He said that it didn’t matter what I did or how much money I made, I needed to do something that made me happy or none of it would be worth it.

“He obviously loved being in the bush and the number of people out there helping us search on that unfortunate day were a testament to the salt of the earth the man was. He was certainly one of a kind.”

Davey Vallau will be sorely missed by his wife, Dianne, and the rest of his family Kristi, Candy, Kelly, Rick, Peter and David.

A celebration of his life will be held at the Valleau family farm in Pemberton on Saturday, May 5.