“There are no stars on a dragon boat team.
But then there are no passengers either…”
– Hugh Fisher
With the Summer Olympics in Beijing just over
the horizon, I couldn’t help but reflect on the Sea to Sky corridor and those
individuals living here who have been successful in past Games. Alas, the list
is quite short. Whistler resident Shannon Smith won a bronze medal in swimming
at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and Steve Podborski followed with another
bronze in Lake Placid four years later. In 1992, current Squamish resident
Hillary Lindh won the silver medal in downhill as a member of the US Ski Team.
But beyond these three, the pickings get mighty slim…
Fortunately, there is Pemberton resident Dr.
Hugh Fisher. A double-medal winner in Los Angeles in flatwater kayaking (gold
and bronze), the blond-headed Fisher and his Mohawk partner Alwyn Morris
provided Canada with one of the most powerful images of the 1984 Games. Indeed,
few who witnessed the medal ceremony in LA will ever forget Morris proudly
lifting an eagle feather high in the air as the two teammates were awarded
their gold medal for the K-2 1000m sprint.
While Fisher is better known locally for
having coached the Laoyam Eagles to their 10
th
victory in a row in
the junior division at Vancouver’s International Dragon Boat Festival —
an outstanding feat given Pemberton Secondary’s 200 students — the
understated physician has a remarkable athletic resume. He was a member of four
Olympic Teams (from 1976 to 1988), a double medallist at the ’83 World
Championships and still today at 52, is one of the fastest Master’s paddlers on
the planet.
Given all the talk about the “stuff” Whistler
will get in return for being an Olympic host, it’s interesting to note that
Fisher credits much of
his
international success
to a Games legacy. But in his case, it didn’t come from the Olympics. “The
Canada Summer Games held in Burnaby in 1973 was hugely important,” he explains.
“The event itself was sort of forgettable for me, tipping as I did on the start
line... but the construction of a world class flatwater racing and training
venue on Burnaby Lake, about a mile from my house, was like an unbelievable
$1.2 million personal gift to me. I trained there for the next decade with many
world-class paddlers — including my future partner, Alwyn Morris.”
Interesting too, that he is putting the
finishing touches to a legacy of his own back in Pemberton. And yet I would
have never known had his colleague Dr. Cathryn Zeglinski not told me about it.
“The local paddling club,” she wrote me, “has a new home now at One Mile Lake
in Pemberton with the recent building of a clubhouse on volunteer donations of
time and labour.” And that, she explained, would have never come about without
Hugh’s involvement.
Fisher, however, refuses to take all the
credit for getting such a promising community legacy off the ground. “I just
got tired of hauling the boats around,” he says with his signature
self-conscious chuckle. “So I went to the village, told them the concept, and
they stepped up and got involved.” He pauses for just a moment. “Pemberton
really supports its athletes, you know. It hasn’t been all that hard to go out
and ask people for help. In a way, it’s a lot like dragon boat racing —
many hands make light work…”
What fascinates me most about Fisher, though,
is how such a watersports athlete (he’s participated and competed in just about
every paddling activity known to man) ever ended up living and working in a
landlocked community like Pemberton. Another gust of laughter. “Good question,”
he says. “I’ve been asking myself that a lot recently. You know, I’ve been
living here now for the better part of two decades. Even raised a family here.
I love this place. Really like the people in Pemberton.” He stops. Takes a deep
breath. “Still, at this point in my life, the idea of living closer to the sea
holds a lot of appeal…”
But back to his path to Pemberton.
Born in New Zealand — but raised
primarily in Burnaby — Fisher put off his medical residency training
until after the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. Too late to enroll in a B.C.-based
program, he decided to go back to his country of birth to complete his
education. “I worked in a very rural setting on the North Island,” he says. “It
was full-scope medicine in a small community. And I loved it.” He smiles. “So
when I returned to Canada, I decided to take two years to travel though B.C.
and find the right place for me.”
His first stop was in Pemberton. “The local
doctor desperately needed a break,” he says. “So I was persuaded to sign on for
one year.” He never left…
Given his first 24 hours in the valley, it’s
amazing Fisher even stayed another day. “It was September of 1991,” he
remembers. “On my first night in Pemberton, a call for help came over the
radio. The Lillooet River was flooding and they needed volunteers to help fill
sandbags. So that’s what I did for most of my first night there.” Exhausted
from the work, the young doctor dragged himself to his B&B the next morning
only to be awakened a few minutes later by the unmistakable sound of gunshots
outside his window. “Turns out that the police had been forced to shoot a bear
because everybody else was busy fighting the flood.” He laughs. “It was quite a
welcome…”
The next week, Hugh brought his wife, Hillary
Downing, to Pemberton. “She’s from a small B.C. town herself,” he says with
almost a straight face. “And her intention at the time was not to live in a
small B.C. town again…”
Undeterred, Fisher embarked on his new medical
adventure with the same energy he’d applied to his paddling. “Pemberton was
quite a different place back then,” he explains. “I was treating primarily
farmers and loggers and members of the local First Nations community.
Unfortunately, I was the only doc around and my practice was huge — one
of the 10 biggest in the province,” He sighs. “During those early years, I was
on-call 100 per cent of the time. There were overwhelming moments, for sure!”
But somehow he managed. “I was raised to think
you have something to give back to your community,” he explains. “So I just did
what I had to do.” Still, folks in Pemberton had never seen the likes of a
doctor like Hugh Fisher before. He laughs. “People around here think it’s
totally normal now for me to walk into the hardware store in board shorts and
flip flops.” Another round of self-deprecating laughter. “But at first, I’m not
sure they really knew what to think...”
Even the launch of his coaching career in the
village came at him sideways. “The parents of some of the kids at the high
school thought I was a rower, so they asked me if I would start a local rowing
club.” He smiles again. “I told them I didn’t know much about rowing. But if
they were interested in paddling, I might be able to do something for them
there.”
Fisher seems to be the kind of person who sees
obstacles merely as challenges to overcome. He approached paddling aficionado
(and friend) Tim Malone at Whistler’s Outdoor Experience with the idea,
convinced him to “lend” him two Voyageur canoes for the program and then he
invited local kids to come out and try out for the new team. “We spent the
first few years just learning the ropes,” he says. “But right from the
beginning, I decided I would take the kids to Vancouver to compete in what was
then the biggest dragon boat festival around.” To everyone’s surprise, the
unknown team from this tiny Coast Mountain village knew what it was doing. In
their third appearance, the Eagles won the very competitive junior division
title. They’ve never relinquished it since…
“You know, I look around this place and I see
all these 8,000-foot mountains surrounding the village,” he says. “It’s like
living in a big bowl. And as beautiful as this valley is, I believe you have to
get out of the bowl every now and then in order to see the rest of the world.”
He pauses. “For me, that was a big motivation in getting these kids to race.
When we go down for an event in Vancouver now, it’s not just 40 kids and their
coach. It’s parents and family and friends and… you know what I mean. It’s a
community thing…”
And then he adds: “There’s nothing like taking
25 kids from Pemberton to downtown Toronto and seeing the reaction on their
faces. That’s when I realize that I get way more out of this program than I put
in.” Still, it’s not like these kids are tourists. Competing at the World Crew
Championships there two years ago, they won seven out of a possible nine gold
medals...
A quietly intense man, Fisher admits he’s not
a yelling, screaming, rah-rah kind of coach. “That’s just not my style,” he
says. “My focus is on teaching good technique and good movement.” He pauses. “I
know there are a lot of coaches out there who would disagree with me, but if
the kids aren’t laughing and splashing each other at the end of one of my workouts,
I figure I’ve done something wrong…”
Clearly Hugh Fisher is one of those uniquely
talented individuals whose positive attitude and personal work ethic easily rub
off on people. And I could go on and on about his accomplishments. But it would
only embarrass him. Let me just finish off then with Hugh’s reflection on that
day 24 years ago in LA when he was crowned the best his sport. “For me, winning
an Olympic gold medal was a very important thing,” he says. “But I realize now
that during all those years of training, I also got to experience things that
today I value much more than my gold medal…”