As one of those Tofino Oldtimers, Guppy, 79, has produced Clayoquot Soundings (Grassroots $15.50), a personal overview of the Tofino area from the 1880s to the 1980s. "My main qualification as an author,"; he says, "is simply writing about what I know.";
Guppy's father took early retirement from the civil service in India soon after World War I. In 1921, lured by publicity in British newspapers about establishing an English colony on the coast of B.C., Guppy Sr. took his family to the remote enclave of Tofino.
"There was not much incentive to obtain a higher education during the Depression,"; Walter Guppy says. "In those days there were men with university educations competing for seasonal employment on fishing boats or in the relief camps.";
Inspired by the gold mining boom at Zeballos, Guppy obtained his first Free Miner's Certificate at age 18 in 1936 and headed for the hills. He discovered an attractive prospect but couldn't develop it prior to the onset of World War II. "I enlisted in the army rather than bear the stigma of being called a 'Zombie',"; he recalls.
Guppy served with the Canadian Forestry Corps in Scotland where he married in 1943. After the war he made a living as an electrical contractor but maintained his sidelong career as a prospector. Because he had learned to type during the war, he was selected to serve as secretary during the Tofino campaign to revive the government's commitment to build a road along Long Beach to connect Tofino and Ucluelet.
"To make a long story a bit shorter,"; he said, "we finally got the road and some of us, now that we see what has developed as a result, wish that we hadn't.";
Guppy's two previous books are Wetcoast Adventures (1988) and Wilderness Wandering on Vancouver Island (1993). He is presently completing a manuscript on historical, geological, political and environmental aspects of mining on Vancouver Island.

[BCBW 1997]