As I was quite used of the smaller Hughes 500 and the Bell Ranger, I was taken off guard by the prop wash of the Huey which is so much larger than what I was accustomed to. The camera crew were set up near the entrance of the door on the roof. I was leaning against the railing that goes around the rooftop (about 4 feet high) doing my thing with light meters, radio, etc. when the chopper came in. The prop wash was so great I had to hang on so as not to be blown over the railing down to the street!

It shook me up so much that my wife, my son and I packed our station wagon up and headed east and to hell with the movie! Not really caring where we were going, we just kept driving east through New England until we came back into Canada at the Maine/New Brunswick border at Calais. Eventually we wound up at a very picturesque place called North Rustico on Prince Edward Island. On the first day there we met this wonderful family that are our friends to this day! Norman Peters and his wife, Marie with their son Cory and daughter Colleen

Norman worked as Mate on a Party Fishing Boat for tourists at the time and as I saw it, did all the work for very little pay. He was the one attracting the tourists with his beard and wonderful "down-east" personality. His boss was too "tipsy" most of the time to even steer the boat! In heavy seas one day his boss, through his excessive imbibing, almost allowed the boat to capsize with twenty or more people aboard! It was Norman that saved us all by taking corrective action before we capsized!

As I had previously promised Norman I would do a portrait of his baby Cory that night, I spent a lot of time trying to convince him he should go into business for himself. That way at least he would not have to wonder if he was going to have to swim home sometime from five miles out. Being the rather shy, reserved and cautious people that east-coasters are famous for, it took a lot of convincing but by the following year he had his own boat, "The Silver Wave" (shown below left) and his business flourished.

My son and I did an advertising layout for him in 1975 and some of those pictures are still used to this day! He is one of the better known and respected people on Prince Edward Island. He has served on councils, many different Committees and the Harbour Commission. Even though I had often told him he should go into Politics, being as shy as he really is he said he couldn't do that. The picture on the right of The Silver Wave picture is Joyce and Harry about five miles out in the Gulf of St. Lawrence fishing for cod. For a few years in the seventies we went to Norman's almost every year and sure did our share of fishing. We had to give up fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence though as the pollution coming down the St. Lawrence River got so bad you could hardly get your line into the water! To think they always blame the Americans for all the pollution in the Great Lake system. Yeah ... right!! Of course as we all know ... most of Ottawa's "politicians-of-power" come from Quebec so what the hell should we expect coming from there but "garbage" anyway!

I have tried for years to find out if the Peters were on the Internet with no success. However, today I received their annual Christmas card with the customary update of their family's activities enclosed and was so pleased to see that Marie has recently started using the Internet. (At her children's insistance apparently.) She is glad they did and so am I. A big "Hi" to the Peters family when and if you get into my web site and read this. I hope they like what they see when they do. I've had their write-up on my site for years now. They and Jan Falkowski were the very first entries I made on it. Welcome to the crazy world of "Instant Communication" Norman and Marie! To us it's an electronic marvel but to the children of today ...... well ..... you know ..... "old hat" I guess.

A Glimpse Of The Beauty Of Prince Edward Island

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