Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of the deaths of eight PGSS students on the Willow River. Below is the abridged version of an editorial written by Dave Paulson on the 30th anniversary of the tragedy:
Anyone who was living in Prince George in May 1974 won't forget the overwhelming tragedy on the Willow River one spring weekend.
Eight young men - six of them about to graduate from Prince George Senior Secondary School and the other two in Grade 11 - set out Saturday morning for a canoe trip that was to end that evening at Fort George Park.
They never made it.
Their three canoes and a kayak capsized and were swallowed by rapids in the Willow River Canyon before the swollen river emptied into the Fraser.
Gone.
When the news broke the next day -- Mother's Day -- the city was gripped by shock and disbelief. Some Mother's Day for these eight moms.
Prince George was small enough then that virtually everybody in town had a connection to at least one of the eight. They were either neighbours, knew the boys or their parents, or a brother or sister, or knew someone who knew them.
PGSSS, or the senior high as it was then commonly known, was the only public school in town that had a graduating class. Every student in the public system at that time took Grade 11 and 12 classes at the senior high, so an accident of this enormity had a profound impact throughout the huge school and across town.
The young men were popular and athletic, teammates in soccer, football and other sports, friends since junior high at Duchess Park and some since elementary school.
Like most of the others, Dwight McFarland was an all-round athlete who excelled at every sport he tried. He was one of the best football players in town and dreamed of playing for the B.C. Lions.
Bryan Weaver moved here with his family from Australia a few years earlier. Sports came so easily to Bryan that he earned a spot with the Spruce Kings not long after lacing up skates for the first time.
David Walker also played for the Spruce Kings, Murray Sales was one of the city's top junior curlers, and sports also ran deep in the veins of Paul Trudeau, Bob Haney, Ian Rice and Jeff Pick.
A moment's silence in their memory was held last Saturday night at the 30th anniversary reunion of the PGSSS class of '74. Sunday morning, several took a trip to the memorial cairn which marks the spot along the Willow River where their friends began a fateful trip which shattered an entire community.
It was the beginning of a nightmarish summer in Prince George. Eight young, promising lives were lost in the Willow River, then in the following weeks and months several other young people were killed in a seemingly endless string of weekend auto accidents. There was a light plane crash which claimed two more teens.
The city was numbed by the tragedies.
It has been 30 long years, but hopefully it warms the hearts of their families to know a city hasn't forgotten.
That would be impossible.
--Dave Paulson, May 10, 2004
