Last week, Peter Bowle-Evans was named the third person to have a street named in his honour in the Town of Golden.

On Friday, July 10, Brenda Bowle-Evans and her son Morgan along with MLA Norm Macdonald, hosted a celebration acknowledging the renaming of the road up Mount 7. The Town of Golden also acknowledged Bowle-Evans by naming the street from the Fire Service Road (FSR) to the rodeo grounds, Bowle-Evans Drive.

The Ministry of Forests (MOE) has changed the name of the FSR road to Bowle-Evans FSR to honour Peter’s contribution to the community.

The ceremony began with Brenda speaking about her husband, his love of Golden and the accomplishments he made here.

Brenda spoke of how Peter came to Canada to spend a year working and skiing before he went to university.

“He had been hooked on the mountains before coming, but by the end of the year his only dream was to return after his schooling. Return, he did. First to Whistler where he met and married me. Then to Golden where we bought property.”

Brenda went on to tell of how she and Peter built their home and then moved on to speak about how Peter helped to get both the Whitetooth Ski School and the Nancy Greene Program off the ground.

“He absolutely adored the hill. From the first day it opened to closing day, each year he was there skiing, promoting and exploring the mountain. This was his first love.”

Sometime in the late 80s, Brenda explained that Peter decided to try hand gliding.

“After one set of lessons from the late Willi Muller, he was instantly hooked and his passion was born. There was no stopping him. Every spare second, and many more that weren’t spare, he devoted to learning to fly and make Mount 7 a world class site.”

First on his agenda, she explained, was the road, which at the time was barely a goat trail.

“He organized and attended countless meetings with Forestry, Town officials, MLAs, contractors, fellow hand gliders as well as anyone who could partake in his vision. Problems that came up, he worked and gnawed away at until he found solutions. You could not stop him!”

Brenda went on to explain that in this process, Peter attended not only to the road, but also the ramps, the logging that had to be done, the contingency plan, the safety boxes and the washrooms.

“There was not one part of the Mount 7 site that he did not have his guiding hands on...He did whatever it took to accomplish his goal, and in doing so, put Mount 7 and Golden on the map.”

“If Peter were here today,” she said, “he would tell you that without all the people who helped, it would not have happened. He would also tell you how much he loved Golden, it people and its beloved mountains. He would stand here humbled by your thoughts and kindness and he would not be able to tell you how much you meant to him. So, for him, I thank you. I can assure you that both Morgan and I are extremely touched by all the people who have made such huge efforts to make sure that Peter will not be forgotten. We thank you.”

There were others who remembered Bowle-Evans’s passion for getting things done.

Dave Raven, District Manager for the MOF, said that when the Golden-Revelstoke districts were amalgamated, there was an awful lot of work to be done.

“We found that the Mount 7 road project was one of those unfinished pieces of business that we could work on that gave us a lot more pleasure.”

Raven said all through the process the MOF worked with Bowle-Evans.

“Peter was...persistent and we appreciated that because he was also very polite and very helpful and eventually we got it done. The road and the hand-gliding site are a real piece of pride for us. We are not in the recreation business anymore, but this is something we’ve taken a lot of pride in over the years as we accomplished it.

When we were approached about the name, we were quite proud to be able to change the name to Bowle-Evans Forest Service Road. It signifies an awful lot of tie to the community...there are so many people in today’s world that want things, but aren’t prepared to put effort into it and in this case, Peter did.”

Macdonald spoke of the politics that are involved in changing the name of a road.

“It may seem very simple to just change the name of a road, there is always complexities and many of these, at the local level, fell on the capable shoulders of Chief Administrative Officer, Phil Taylor.”

“First and foremost, Peter was at my desk many times,” said Taylor to laughs from the audience.

“My first words to him were; Peter, I really appreciate your passion, but the impossible takes a bit longer, and he said, ‘Not good enough, let’s get on with this’.”

Taylor went on to say that it was Bowle-Evans that worked to connect the Town, the MOF and the CSRD to make the road happen.

Taylor explained that he recently received the email from Macdonald and Raven saying that they had changed the name of the FSR.

“But the Town of Golden also has a road that goes from the start of the FSR down to the bottom of the hill by the rodeo grounds. So our Town Council basically said, not good enough that just the FSR be renamed, so the road from here to the rodeo grounds is now Bowle-Evans Drive.”

Taylor went on to say that this is only the third road in the Town of Golden that is named after somebody.

“The first one was Garreb, the second is Fischer...the third is Peter Bowle-Evans which basically made the FSR into a recreation road that we can all be very proud of.”