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Rockin Rhonda & The Blues Band: Here comes Peter. Here comes Dave. Oh listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing. Spinning tales in the podcast cave. So much laughs and insights everywhere. Peter and Dave, they're on the mics. Alright, join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.

Dave Graham: Fellow citizens of this good earth, I bid you welcome and I offer my gratitude for your gracious presence on this grand occasion, for it has been seven months since we released our first Pulse Community Podcast. Oh, precious memories indeed. And it wouldn't be possible or practical without the perfect partner, Peter. It's Peter McCully!

Peter McCully: And there's a man who sounds determined to use every word he knows today. It's Dave Graham.

Dave Graham: Ah, you know, I'm just itching to use the word "punctilious." Oh, well, there you go.

Peter McCully: Yeah, let's go. Let's move on. The Pulse Community Podcast is centered on the events, the people, and the stories of mid-Vancouver Island. As far as people and stories go, we've got a couple of doozies this week.

Dave Graham: Oh, doozies. Excellent word. As far as automobile-related colloquialisms go, you might say that's unparalleled, or you might not. This week's edition will include a conversation Peter had with Robert Bateman of Salt Spring Island. He has a show this summer at the Cowichan Valley Museum entitled "Mid-Century Bateman."

Robert Bateman: I had a very close friend, Eric Thorn, who grew up on Vancouver Island, and then he moved to Toronto to the Royal Ontario Museum. We were very close naturalist artist buddies, and we went on a painting trip to Vancouver Island to his old haunts, which I'd never seen before. We were either camping, but when we were in Victoria, we actually stayed in the basement of the museum where they had all the creepy stuff, like giant vats of formaldehyde with critters resting in the liquid and old totem poles and things.

Peter McCully: Robert Bateman, how many people do you know that have a school named after them? Well, Robert Bateman has two. And how many people do you know that own a piece of TV history? Dave spoke with Ken Schley of Qualicum Beach, co-owner of the SS Minnow from the TV show, Gilligan's Island. The Minnow makes its home in Nanoose Bay and she spends her time on the water fundraising for charity.

Ken Schley: It's only been fundraising the whole time we've had it. It's only gone out for fundraisers. There's no personal use on it at all, and when you see it, it's actually working. So it's actually fundraising and wherever you see it, if you see it in Powell River, it'd be working for Powell River, Courtenay. All those funds go directly to the fundraiser. There's no captain paying, there's no crew paying, there's no food paying. 100% of whatever they raise goes to the specific charity. It's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars raised for Vancouver Island.

Dave Graham: Oh, it was a treat to sit down with Ken Schley to talk about the Minnow. That conversation's still ahead, of course. And congratulations are in order. Those Chilliwack tickets are, yes, gone, gone, gone.

Peter McCully: Chilliwack will bring their farewell tour to the Parksville Outdoor Stage July 12th. And Linda Hargreaves of Cumberland will be there courtesy of the BeachFest and the Pulse Community Podcast.

Linda Hargreaves: Excited about the tickets. Very excited. I know all the songs, great to take it in. So yeah, I'm really thrilled. I'm running around singing "Gone, gone, gone, gone so long."

Dave Graham: Congrats again to Linda coming from Cumberland for a show that will be well worth the trip. Heck, I'd just go to watch the opening act. Johnny Inappropriate is going to be the warmup for Chilliwack July 12th, and they're a terrific band.

Peter McCully: Thanks to all who entered, and we invite you to watch our website and social media for our next giveaway. It's a four-day general admission pass to SunFest, and we've made it even easier to enter. So be on the lookout when our next contest opens.

Dave Graham: So we have Father's Day coming, and the World Famous Car Show in Qualicum Beach. Summer officially begins June 20th. National Indigenous Peoples' Day is observed June 21st, and from our "Speak to Us" line, we have Kristine Stevenson with a reminder of a couple of other dates of note.

Kristine Stevenson: Have you heard about the ParticipACTION Community Challenge? The Community Challenge is a national program that encourages Canadians to get active in the month of June. Canada's most active community will win $100,000 to support local sport and physical activity initiatives. Individuals and organizations can track their physical activity throughout the month and contribute to the community's total tally. With support from ParticipACTION, the Arrowsmith Community Recreation Association will be running free fitness classes three days per week for the entire month of June. All programs will be held outside throughout Arrowsmith, which means classes are conditional on dry weather.

On Monday evenings from 5:30 to 6:30 PM in Errington Community Park, ACRA is offering Eccentric Stretch and Tone. This class combines elements of flow yoga and Tai Chi to increase mobility while stretching and strengthening your entire body. On Wednesday mornings from 9:30 to 10:30 AM at the Coombs Fairgrounds, we have Body Weight, Strength, and Balance. You'll improve your strength and range of motion in this all-levels program full of squats and lunges with hidden core work sprinkled in. On Friday mornings from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM at the Meadowwood Community Park, we are offering Morning Yoga Flow. This class combines breath work, stretching, and gentle flow to improve flexibility, build strength, and support inner calm.

This is a drop-in program, so all you need to do is show up with your mat ready to go. Help us build a stronger and healthier community. Let's get moving together in June.

Peter McCully: Thanks to Kristine Stevenson for making use of our "Speak to Us" line. That's one way to reach us. Follow the contact link on thepulsecommunity.ca to leave us a voice message or send a text or email. We'll also offer the opportunity to sign up for our newsletter and get reminders of our weekly podcasts and newest contests.

Dave Graham: So what's a good gift for Dad on Father's Day? I have to admit I'm a bit out of touch. My dad passed a few years ago. Are neckties still a good choice? I don't think neckties were ever a good choice, Dave. Well, if I were to go by marketing indicators, I'd say what's hot is anything that uses the word "tactical." That seems to be a popular word when it comes to items for men. You slap the word "tactical" on it, it gives it, you know, attitude. That, and the word "curated." That's, you know, classy. It suggests sophistication.

So if I'm just trying to be helpful here, if I had to go shopping for a gift, I'd be looking for a curated collection of tactical neckties.

Peter McCully: And I'd be right behind you, Dave. Future guests include Sean Wood, councillor for the City of Parksville, and a member of the Nanaimo Regional Hospital District Board of Directors.

Dave Graham: And Janelle Van Dongen, who recently returned from Ottawa, where she was a member of the Student Parliament. But wait, there's more. We have a special edition of the Pulse Community Podcast in the works to celebrate the start of summer.

Peter McCully: We welcome your input for our Summertime Music special. What song do you think of when you think of summer? Let us know, or maybe you have a summertime story to share. Go to thepulsecommunity.ca and leave your request or message.

Ian Lindsay & Associates: Ian Lindsay of Lindsay and Associates has played an active role in the local community since 1979. He has been with Re/Max Vancouver Island's most advanced real estate business network since 1996, marketing and selling residential, rural, strata, recreational, investment, and project development real estate. Ian has received several awards recognizing his exceptional community commitment locally, as well as awards for outstanding performance and achievement from both Re/Max International and the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. You'll find true real estate professionals at ianlindsay.ca.

Windsor Plywood French Creek: The Pulse Community Podcast is brought to you in part by Windsor Plywood in French Creek, specializing in hard-to-source interior and exterior home finishing products, including flooring, doors and moldings, and exterior project materials such as yellow cedar. Windsor Plywood French Creek carries high-quality, responsibly sourced products and are committed to providing outstanding value and personalized one-on-one service to all of our customers: homeowners, do-it-yourselfers, renovators, builders, designers, craftsmen, and contractors. Regardless of the type or size of your project, Windsor can help you bring your vision to life from start to finish. Let Windsor Plywood French Creek help you with your renovation, new build or building project. Visit them online or call 752-3122.

Dave Graham: I've been thinking back to Father's Day gifts from years ago. Other than a tie, yeah, I gave ties. I can remember giving dad only one other gift. It was a rather ornate magnifying glass. My dad was a banker. He worked in an office. I figured, yeah, he had fine print to look at from time to time. I don't know if he ever used it, but it became a permanent part of his desk accessories. You might say it was a curated collection, but it was given a place there on his desk, and that made me feel pretty good whenever I saw it.

Peter McCully: Funny, later in his life, I gave my dad a honking big magnifying glass as well, which I now have and need to use more than I'd like to admit.

Dave Graham: You know, it's conceivable that our next guest, between Father's Day, his birthday and Christmas, could receive 15 neckties a year. That is, if his kids can't think of anything else to get him. And here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: In the Green Room is one of Canada's best known artists and naturalists, Robert Bateman of Salt Spring Island. Robert has a new show of work currently on exhibition at the Cowichan Valley Museum.

Peter McCully: Thanks for joining us again on the podcast today, Robert.

Robert Bateman: My pleasure.

Peter McCully: The Unexpected Bateman exhibition on Salt Spring Island earlier this spring revealed some lesser known aspects of your artistic journey, and I know it was very well attended. I understand there was a young man there who flew all the way from Japan to see the show and to meet you.

Robert Bateman: Yes, yes. That's very, very flattering that someone will go to all that trouble and pay for the flights and all that kind of thing. I was greatly honored that he did. I have some connections with some Japanese environmental people, and I've had a wonderful trip to Japan to visit all kinds of remote areas to look at nature. If I can name-drop with a princess, no less: Princess Takako with the Royal Family, who was an avid naturalist, and she took us around her favorite nature spots in Japan, including Okinawa, the extreme North Hokkaido, all the way down to the far south. So that was a highlight.

It is interesting because growing up, I was a teenager during World War II and Japan was the enemy, and Germany. Now I married a German girl and I love Germany and have all kinds of German friends, and I love Japan and have Japanese friends too. It's interesting how things come around and turn around and don't stay resentful forever.

Peter McCully: You've got a new show entitled "Mid-Century Bateman," which is running in Duncan until the end of August. And it features some very early pieces, some prints, some originals that reflect life in the forties up through to the sixties, especially on Vancouver Island. And I understand that you were doing some hiking and painting on Vancouver Island in those early days.

Robert Bateman: Yes. I lived in Toronto, but I had a very close friend, Eric Thorn, who grew up on Vancouver Island, and then he moved to Toronto to the Royal Ontario Museum. We were very close naturalist artist buddies, and we went on a painting trip to Vancouver Island to his old haunts, which I'd never seen before. We were either camping, but when we were in Victoria, we actually stayed in the basement of the museum where they had all the creepy stuff, like giant vats of formaldehyde with critters resting in the liquid and old totem poles and things. And we put our sleeping bags on the floor there. It's not for visitors, but it's still standing near the beautiful new museum in Victoria.

Peter McCully: So I understand the show, Robert, kind of reflects the good old days.

Robert Bateman: I think you could say that, yeah, because that's when I was here. Thank goodness, many of the things haven't changed.

Peter McCully: I understand there's a couple of pieces of art forms other than painting. There's an etching and a stone litho. Perhaps you could tell us about those.

Robert Bateman: Most of my prints are reproduction prints. Years ago, I was a number one target in the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star for doing signed and numbered reproductions, because original prints like etchings and stone lithos are signed and numbered, and they thought there was something bogus or nefarious about that. I did a number of real original prints. Most of what people call my prints are reproductions. So there's reproductions in which there's a real thing, the big daddy out there somewhere, and a photo-mechanical offset press has made prints of them, but we've limited the number and I sign and number each of them, and that's where the confusion comes. And that's why I get brickbats from some of the art snobs.

Peter McCully: But you were a trendsetter, Robert. You started a whole industry.

Robert Bateman: I didn't start it per se, but I was certainly the most conspicuous and the biggest target. And Mill Pond Press in Venice, Florida were the ones that really pushed it and promoted it. Roger Peterson, who invented the concept of nature field guides, he started with Mill Pond Press. He was succeeding quite well. The President of Mill Pond Press, Bob Lewin, said, "We really don't know anything about nature. Who would be a good guy to add to the stable?" So he said, "Well, you might give Robert Bateman a call."

So they did. And I said, "No, thank you. I'm busy. I don't need to have prints." And he called two or three times. I kept saying, "No, thank you." He said, "We'll fly you down to Florida." I said, "I'm too busy." He said, "Okay, I'll fly up and meet with you. Please just give me an hour. I'll come to your house and meet with you and show you what we do," which he did.

I said, "Oh, well, okay. It can't hurt." He said, "You can make a lot of money." I said, "I've got plenty of money." He said, "Well, you can give the money to conservation." He was getting really quite irritated, and I said, "Oh yeah, okay." So I did, and that's how the whole thing started.

Peter McCully: One of the paintings that you have on display will be a self-portrait, which inspired you to paint a background, which I understand emulates the style of Emily Carr, which you picked up when you were on Vancouver Island.

Robert Bateman: Yes. Well, I always did admire Emily Carr's work and admired her as a person too. Somebody who was so dedicated and spent time out in nature. She went into the great forest here and made the trees all swirly and kind of solidified them. Instead of being like a filigree, that was a Douglas fir—the branches are kind of filigree. She made them solid, almost like totem pole influence. And of course she did quite a bit of paintings of First Nations villages and the totem poles too.

Peter McCully: And you mentioned conservation and your prints. Your painting's progress is going to be displayed as well. And that was, I understand, the first reveal of your, let's call it conservation side, that appeared in 1967 when you photographed and later painted the vanishing scenes of Halton County, Ontario, where you were living at the time.

Robert Bateman: Yes, a pivotal thing happened back then. Some people of a certain age and certain geography would know that Toronto started to really expand and suburbia, which is a kind of a different form of urban development, is massive. All the little boxes made of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same. They just keep going on and on and on and on is what I called an instant pudding world. With instant pudding, you don't have to know anything about the ingredients. In fact, if you knew about the ingredients, it might be troubling. Who knows what monosodium disulfide does? I just made that up. I don't know if that's in it.

You don't bother reading the ingredients. All you do is add water and stir, and you have this lovely instant pudding that tastes good and it seems to be good, but it may not be good for you, but you don't know. The powers that be don't want you to care either. So I started to call what we're doing to the planet was turning it into an instant pudding world in which Joe Blow & Associates made your world for you. They made all the decisions on the environment that you're gonna live in and the houses and where the park is gonna be and all that kind of thing, and you just pay your money and slurp up the sweet instant pudding.

Peter McCully: Great analogy, Robert. What do you hope visitors to your Duncan show will learn about your art or about Robert?

Robert Bateman: It's really hard for me to say because it depends on who they are and where they're coming from. The analogy could be in music: easy, popular music is easy to take and easy to digest. But real heavy-duty musicians often don't like pop music. They would prefer Stravinsky. That's a more rarefied kind of thing. I'm well aware of Stravinsky. I happen to like most Stravinsky too. I think my taste is going from what some people consider the only art, and I like that. And others consider that's garbage and this is the only art, and I like that too.

Peter McCully: Robert, a little earlier this year, your "Mustang Country" piece, which has been around for a while, was featured on a Royal Canadian Mint coin in both gold and silver editions. How does it feel to see your work on a coin versus a canvas?

Robert Bateman: Well, it's a great honor to have the Canadian Mint select one of my pieces, and it has happened earlier, but I tend to not linger on great honors. You know, I say to myself, "That's nice. I'm grateful. Now let's move on. What's next?"

Peter McCully: Robert, at 95 years of age, you've mentioned that you're still painting regularly or chatting as you're in your studio, and you say you've never heard of an artist who actually retired. Has your approach to creating art changed as you've gotten older?

Robert Bateman: No, no. I got serious when I was 12 and I used to go home from school and do art every day, and then I was a teacher for 30 years because I didn't want to try to make a living from selling my art. I wanted to paint whatever I wanted. I was in the top category of teacher. My degree in geography, I took four years of honors geography at University of Toronto. I did that so I could get free trips into the wilderness in order to paint. One of the best trips of my life was to Ungava, which is extreme Northern Quebec. It's a little bay between Hudson Bay and the Labrador coast, which goes up, comes to a point. There's another little bay, like a little bite taken out, and that's Ungava Bay.

I was working for Fenimore Iron Mines, mapping iron ore. It's quite a short trip by ship from Ungava Bay to Rotterdam where the ore would be smelted, was quite a bit shorter. They were doing a survey to see if it was economically feasible to ship the ore direct to Rotterdam from Ungava Bay, and I was in on that. Four white guys, two Inuit. The Inuit said their people had never walked there before, and we knew no white guys ever had. So we were the first to set foot on that land. I had as a hobby at that time, collecting small mammals. One of my closest buddies, Bristol Foster, worked at the museum. I had other friends who collected small mammals. I think I can say with a certain amount of pride, but it seems a little weird, I have stuffed mice at the Royal Ontario Museum, the Chicago Field Museum, Museum of Natural History in South Kensington in England, and two or three other museums. You can go behind the scenes, pull out a drawer and find a stuffed mouse with a little label on it that says "Robert Bateman, 1953." I collected mice up in that part of Ungava where no one had ever collected before.

My mice were in high demand in certain very small circles of museums. My buddy Bristol Foster got his MA on a mouse. It's a vole, which is like a meadow mouse. It's a distinguishing creature. This, it has a yellow nose and a slightly yellowish rump. Otherwise, it looks like a meadow mouse. I kind of like to say this as a quip. Its scientific name is Phenacomys ungava. But you may not like scientific names, so its common name is Ungava Phenacomys. There were only two or three in all the museums of the world that summer and I got about 20. So that was a great claim to fame as a 20-something kid.

Peter McCully: If you're talking about mice that you stuffed in 1953, your archives must be extensive. Robert, any ideas as to how many paintings and photos and whatnot that you have in your collection?

Robert Bateman: No, I don't. No. Yeah, Kate is an archivist by training, but our degrees in honors geography, the same as mine, is at University of Toronto. She has archival skills, so maybe she knows.

Kate: There are over 3,500 paintings and drawings that we've catalogued, and thousands of photographs, which are not catalogued yet.

Robert Bateman: No. I don't know if they ever will be.

Peter McCully: Well, I'll give you something to do on the weekends, right? Or maybe John wants to do that. Your son John has done yeoman's work in sharing your art and philosophy online through social media. How do you feel about this new method of communication compared to what was available to you when you did your very first show back in 1967?

Robert Bateman: I actually think it's wonderful. I don't know a thing about it. I don't have anything to do with it, but I approve. On a totally different topic, young kids spend almost all their waking hours looking at a screen. I feel very strongly that that is a big mistake. I have a proposal, which I say at the drop of a hat, and I'll say it right now: if you are going to look at a screen, I can't stop you, of course, but what I ask is keep track of the time and spend the same amount of time outdoors. If you're gonna be on a screen an hour and a half in a day, be outdoors for an hour and a half in a day. That's not too much to ask, but it's impossible. My wish will not come true, I'm afraid. I don't want them walking around as I've seen people do with electronic device in their hand looking at the screen while they're walking around. No, no. I want them to be listening to the birds and breathing the air and trying to identify the plants and so on.

Peter McCully: I'm always fascinated, you know, I live in Parksville now and I try to walk the boardwalk three or four times a week, especially in the summer when it's nice, and I'm always amazed at how many people are sitting in the sand on their phone.

Robert Bateman: I guess it's better than sitting in their little cubbyhole at home on their phone. At least you're getting fresh air.

Peter McCully: I was looking at one of your social media posts not that long ago, and I saw a shot of you washing the dishes. Is that something you enjoy?

Robert Bateman: Yes, I do. My dad always did dishes. My dad was an electrical engineer. He was head of the lighting service department at Canadian General Electric, which is quite a big deal. His job was giving advice on big deal lighting, like how do you light Maple Leaf Ballpark so that you can play a game at night, and the field is completely well lit, and so the fielder can see a fly ball coming and all in the stands can see the ball as well. How do you light that? It was free advice, but of course they kind of hoped that they'd use General Electric bulbs and that kind of thing. But that was his job, was to go around and give advice on illumination. But he did dishes and put on a little apron, and I sometimes put on a little apron too, if we've got a male apron that isn't too frilly looking. And doing dishes is actually very meditative. It's nice, warm water and you can see when you're finished. It's a great sense of satisfaction. I'm all in favor of doing dishes as a daily activity.

Peter McCully: I feel the same way about cutting grass.

Robert Bateman: I'm slightly against lawns. We generally let our grass here grow. We have deer that come and wander in it and they nibble at it.

Peter McCully: I have just enough grass to keep the dog happy.

Robert Bateman: Okay, right.

Peter McCully: Robert, thanks for having me. We will check out your Cowichan show this summer.

Dave Graham: Thanks for having us. Robert Bateman and the Cowichan Valley Museum honoring Bateman's recent 95th birthday with a show of his work featuring examples from throughout his long career, some of which have never been on public display before. "Mid-Century Bateman" is on until August 31st in Duncan, and you can bet that that is a carefully curated collection.

Peter McCully: We have a growing collection of kids' stories. We call them Skookum Kid Stories. One series is based around a unique ocean-going craft that can also travel on the land. It's the metal submarine featuring Captain Dave and his first mate, Larry the Lobster.

Dave Graham: And then there's Peter and Gracie. Gracie is a dog, and she and Peter, while they travel to places familiar to many in this area, the latest story takes place at the Deep Bay Marine Field Station. Follow along as Peter goes from curious child to a certified junior marine biologist. All the stories, old and new, are at thepulsecommunity.ca.

Peter McCully: Also skookumkids.com, all the major platforms: Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Buzzsprout, and YouTube. We also have sponsorship opportunities. Let's talk. Email peter@thepulsecommunity.ca.

Thrifty Foods: At Thrifty Foods, we love to help nonprofits, charities, and schools. Our Thrifty Foods Smile Card bulk program allows organizations to immediately save up to 6% on the purchase of Smile Cards in bulk, allowing you to keep more money in your organization's pockets. Ask for details at Thrifty Foods in Parksville.

Tablet Pharmacy: Ever find yourself waiting endlessly at a big box pharmacy feeling like just another number? There's a better way. At Tablet Pharmacy, they provide the personalized service you deserve. Check their competitive prices online at tabletpharmacy.ca before you even leave home. They offer free delivery and blister packaging options to make managing your medications easier than ever. With convenient locations in Parksville, Qualicum Beach, and now open in Nanaimo near the Brick, Tablet Pharmacy has been serving Vancouver Island since 2019. Stop being just a prescription number. Experience the Tablet Pharmacy difference today. Visit them online and check their prices at tabletpharmacy.ca.

Ian Lindsay & Associates: Ken Schley of Qualicum Beach joins us from the Green Room. Ken is the co-owner of the SS Minnow, the iconic boat from the sixties TV show, Gilligan's Island, which makes its home on Vancouver Island.

Humble Harmony: [Theme song]

Dave Graham: As we all know from that iconic theme song, it was a fateful trip that started aboard this tiny ship. And today we're happy to have with us the owner of that very boat that captured America's imagination, the SS Minnow. Welcome to Ken Schley, and thank you for bringing the story of this piece of television history to our podcast listeners today.

Ken Schley: This is gonna be fantastic. Little bit of Minnow talk. Can't get enough.

Dave Graham: I'm glad to hear that because I'm sure there's nothing here that you haven't covered a thousand times before, such as retelling the story of just how you came to purchase the SS Minnow.

Ken Schley: The reason I found it, it was a neighbor of mine. I moored in Schooner Cove, and it happened to just be the neighbor of mine, and the gent that was refurbishing it got tired of it. It needed a lot of work all the time. So, and one day he just came to us and said, "It's got someone interested in the States to maybe want to buy it." It went kind of viral when he said that, 'cause nobody in Schooner Cove wanted it to be sold to the States for a number of reasons. But Schooner Cove loved the boat so. He had a fairly hefty offer. We just said, "Well, I'll take it, but not necessarily for that price." But I said, "I have to ask my partner, John Brucalo." So I phoned him and John said, "No, absolutely not." And so I went back to him. I says, "Yeah, okay, we're done. We're taking it."

So, yeah, John didn't really want any advertising or marketing. He just kind of just wanted to go silently. The very first day that we bought it, Global TV got a hold of the coverage and it was on national television, and we were getting calls all the way across Canada 'cause we're in the grocery business, so all my buddies in share groups were all phoning, saying, "What the hell's going on? What'd you buy?" It turned out that John didn't exactly get a secret, but it was good for the community. We kept the boat here, otherwise it would've left.

Yeah. At the time you took possession, was she seaworthy? If you looked at it, it looked fine. The guy who had it was pretty mechanical and did a pretty good job maintaining it, and he took it out a lot. He fished a lot. But after taking it and starting to do a little reno, we found there's a lot of wood rot. That's a 1963 boat. So by the time we started doing, we had to actually take it right down to the gunnels from stem to stern and start all over again. So if we hadn't have done it, then it would've had to have been done for sure. So we just, we did it all right from scratch and we kept it in the water while we did it, and we used balsa wood for the templates and what we could save, we saved. And what we had to take out, we took out and brought back new mahogany.

Dave Graham: Could you venture what percentage of the current craft is original?

Ken Schley: Oh, 90% has been redone. Same, you know, headers, big, thick components. They could stay, so the headers, some of the bridge work, the entire hull itself, the wooden hull is the exact same, just from the gunnels up.

Dave Graham: In terms of modern technology, is all that aboard?

Ken Schley: Yeah. We kept the original engine. It's got two little 4-cylinder Detroits. All electronics are new. The plumbing was new. The heads and the kitchen. We took the old cabinetry out, you know, had a fridge and had an old kerosene stove. We took that all and made it all modernized, but we hid it all, made it look still original. Where the fridge was is where it was. Then we made it look old again and it is a fridge. So you would think it's the same boat.

Dave Graham: Prior to all of this happening, did you have any particular connection with Gilligan's Island or characters on the show or anything?

Ken Schley: No, absolutely not. You know, I knew what Gilligan's Island was, but this just became a bit of a fluke to have to acquire it. But I thought, you know, it had so much following back then. I just thought it was something fun we could do with it. Didn't know what exactly. Didn't have any preconceived idea of what we would do, but first say, I wanted to make sure it was seaworthy and more than safe for sure. We just started doing it and while we were doing it, that's when we found out, oh, a lot of people were very interested in it. I mean, it was amazing how many people went on that boat over the years.

Dave Graham: Have you learned any interesting or little known facts about the boat or the cast or anything about the show during this process?

Ken Schley: Through this, we met, well, we met her (Dawn Wells) and she was incredible. Like she actually came to Qualicum Foods and signed autographs one solid day. It was in the thousands of people that she saw, and then she actually entertained at night at fireworks. She was 76 years old and she just loved it and she'd never been on the boat. So when we went to Nanaimo, 'cause we wanted to have her out on the boat, I think at the time a television station wanted to do a feature on that. So she went on to the boat. Well, she's bawling because she'd never been on the boat before. She just produced her "50 Years of Mary Ann," so that kinda coincided. There was a huge group of dragon boaters that were there. They were trying to raise money for cancer, so she supported that and she was there for over an hour signing autographs to them.

The lady is incredible what she tried to do and what she did do for our communities, for sure, but I'm sure other communities too.

Dave Graham: I remember being present for the day when she was here at the store. And wasn't that a remarkable experience?

Ken Schley: I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe grown men crying on their knees. You'd have to see it to believe it. Actually, it was incredible. But with more her endurance, we told her like, you know, "You should take a break," you know, even at six o'clock we said, "You gotta go and we'll deal with the extra people." And she goes, "I'm not going until the last person left." And that was like eight o'clock at night. Then we drove her home. She just changed. And then she came to the fireworks. She also did one for us in BC Place Boat Show. It was a couple years later and it's still the record day for BC Place. It was a Wednesday, the record day. They only hired her for one day. It was a Wednesday. They wanted her for the opening.

Again, it was lined up all day. I got a hold of the guy who made the arrangements for her, and I asked her first. I said, "Well, would you stay extra if you know we could get you some funds?" She didn't care about the funds. She said, "I'll stay extra." So she stayed Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. She stayed till 10 o'clock and then she went, did the Timmy's Telethon, which she was one of the originals on the Timmy Telethon. And she did that. And then she went home. She had very little funds of her own. She was not paid well during the episodes, and they had no royalties thereafter. And so she wasn't exactly living the high life for sure when she did all this for charity.

Dave Graham: Is that sort of the main mandate behind the SS Minnow for you now, to be a fundraising vessel, so to speak?

Ken Schley: It's only been fundraising the whole time we've had it. It's only gone out for fundraisers. There's no personal use on it at all. When you see it, it's actually working, so it's actually fundraising and wherever you see it, if you see it in Powell River, it'd be working for Powell River, Courtenay. All those funds go directly to the fundraiser. There's no captain paying, there's no crew paying, there's no food paying. 100% of whatever they raise goes to the specific charity. It's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars raised for Vancouver Island, and it's been to every festival that the island would have. So Comox Days, Powell River, Nanaimo, all those festivals, and we leave the boat open. We'd have it manned. People could come on and go off and come on. We'd have $5 tokens that we would ask them to donate to go to the charity, and then they'd get a $5 SS Minnow token that they could bring back to the store. Those cost me about four bucks to make, and we produced like 10,000 of them. We got none back.

They kept them. People would tell me, "I still got my coin." You know, the people that were coming and you would think they're kids. They were not, they were all mid-aged people, right to, you know, my age that just were enthralled by the boat, and particularly if Mary Ann was ever mentioned or named, or even if we had pictures or posters, people were all over it.

Dave Graham: Way back when, when you were considering the possibility of becoming the owner of the SS Minnow, you knew the excitement was there in that moment, but did you foretell the level of excitement this boat has generated?

Ken Schley: I can't believe it's been—I gotta say 15 years. I can't believe the level of enthusiasm is still. CHEK News did a thing on us about six months ago. I swear to God, I got thousands of people phoning me saying, "I saw you on TV. What's going on? You're still doing this?" I don't know what it is with that boat, but maybe it's only because it's the last thing out there people can really associate with. I'm not sure. But it is amazing when it goes out in Nanaimo, 'cause that's where it lives. People honk and... I just can't believe it's still going strong.

Dave Graham: And due to that, have you made plans for maintaining the legacy of this craft and its ongoing fundraising ability?

Ken Schley: Well, I've been trying to. I'm hoping that something will come up, that someone is prepared to take on the legacy for sure. It's pretty costly to keep—it's in a shed, has to be in the water, so it's gotta be maintained in a shed in the water, of course, electronics and motors and all that. So the upkeep is pretty expensive, for the insurance and it might put on 30 or 40 hours, so it's not very much. We spend more time cleaning it and running it up than we do actually taking people out, and whoever does it would have to maintain it to that level. It's probably a 55-year-old wooden boat, so it's not easy to maintain.

Dave Graham: If you could take just three people aboard the SS Minnow on a private cruise, who might they be?

Ken Schley: I think I've taken everybody that I could possibly take out there. People that I would never expect have called us. I've had the guy who's got the Batcave in California that actually has the authentic Batcave, and different mayors of different communities reach out and say, "Can you just do something for the community," which I would've never been able a chance to meet these people. A lot of the charity people that have asked for different things for us to do would never had a chance to meet them and become associated with them. I think I've pretty well had anybody, unless anybody you know that wants to go for a ride, I'm in.

Dave Graham: If you could take the SS Minnow anywhere in the world for a special cruise, any thoughts as to where you might like to go?

Ken Schley: I gotta tell you the where that thing belongs is right here on Vancouver Island. I mean, it doesn't matter where you go in any of the communities up and down this island. The camaraderie that we get and how we're received at all the different marinas, it's amazing. And it's been asked to go in the old wood boat shows in Vancouver, which we've taken it. Of course, I wouldn't accept any awards for it because I let the other boats participate, but we would've won every notable award. So it belongs here. It really does belong on Vancouver Island. And I don't think there's a single person that knows that boat, that doesn't know where it is.

And I've just built a new marina and a new shed for it, and I'm hoping that it's gonna get some more marketing ability so we can do some more community stuff by just taking it out and letting people join on board. It has tried to go to Alaska. It's gone to Alaska, not with me. It's gone around the island, not with me. It's done a lot. It's gone from California down here, so it's got a lot of miles on it. It's sunk a couple times. Legit. It's just happy being here. She knows where she's actually loved and it's gotta be here on Vancouver Island.

Dave Graham: Do you feel you have a relationship with this boat, you personally?

Ken Schley: Yeah. She's getting on my nerves. Yeah. That'd be hard to part with. That's the problem I've had. People wanna buy it for promotional uses and for stuff like that, take it apart, use, you know, use half the hull. I just can't let it go. That's what I was kind of hoping that maybe with the relationships I had with some business people might take it on as a legacy. If not, I'm quite comfortable just carrying it on myself, but I'm not gonna give it up for sure. Maybe even a museum might take it. I'm not sure. I mean, that's a good spot for it.

Dave Graham: It's been so much fun hearing your stories. Ken, thank you so much.

Ken Schley: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Dave Graham: What began as a boat in a sitcom has transformed into something much more meaningful. While Gilligan and the Skipper's journey ended when the camera stopped rolling, the Minnow's real adventure was just beginning here on Vancouver Island.

Humble Harmony: [Theme Song]

Peter McCully: The Ballad of Gilligan's Island was recorded live at the McMillan Arts Centre with a community singing group called Humble Harmony. Founded in 2021 by song leader Sylvia Humble, a cross between a community choir and a campfire song circle, Humble Harmony is a fun and informal non-performing group that welcomes all voices regardless of experience. Humble Harmony meets in Parksville on Thursdays at 3:30 at the MAC, with additional afternoon and evening group options in Nanaimo. Folks are welcome to drop in. To learn more about Humble Harmony and their song circle, visit sylviahumble.ca.

Dave Graham: I gotta give credit to Sylvia Humble for creating a group that gets together to sing just for the sake of singing. What a wonderful idea. And as for the SS Minnow, what a legacy for a silly sitcom. Let's be honest, it was silly. It ran three seasons 50 years ago. It says something that any interest remains, let alone as much as there is. You can still get a Ginger wig, for example. I just happen to know that, and thanks again to Ken Schley for the stories. Of course, when I think of Ken, I think of Qualicum Foods. That leads me to think of, well, food. What do you say, Peter?

Peter McCully: Well, I say it's time to head down to the cafeteria. In honor of our podcast, Mabel got her hands on a copy of a recipe book by Dawn Wells. You'll remember she was Mary Ann on the TV show, Gilligan's Island. It's called "Mary Ann's Gilligan's Island Cookbook," and it features favorite recipes of the cast members.

Dave Graham: Is that for real?

Peter McCully: I wouldn't kid about a Gilligan's Island cookbook, Dave.

Rockin Rhonda & The Blues Band: Here comes Peter, here comes Dave, oh listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing. Spinning tales in the podcast cave. So to speak. Laughs and insights everywhere. What a treat. Peer and Dave. They're on the mics all right. Join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.