It has been 58 years since Blaine and Donna Flett arrived in Williams Lake for work.
Originally from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the young couple were set on staying a year or two before working their way back home.
They had moved to Vancouver for Blaine to get his teaching certificate at UBC while Donna worked at Vancouver General Hospital as a nurse.
Once he was done school, they were looking for work and learned about Williams Lake through a job fair.
Blaine was hired to teach math and science at Williams Lake Junior Secondary and Donna planned to work as a nurse.
Because there was a doctors’ strike happening when they arrived, Donna waited two weeks before starting work in the maternity ward at Cariboo Memorial Hospital.
Falling in love with the Cariboo they never left, except to spend four summers running a resort at the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia during the 1970s, close to Donna’s hometown.
While they pursued their careers, Blaine also purchased land in 1969 where he began to develop a subdivision - 15 minutes from Williams Lake along the Dog Creek Road.
Today they live there and the subdivision bears the Flett name as does the road leading into it.
“I developed and sold it in three stages,” he said.
The first phase went through, but everything halted when the NDP government passed the Land Commission Act in 1973.
Blaine ended up being the first developer to work with the Cariboo Regional District once the act was in place.
While roads and hydro were ready and lots at the subdivision were fit to go on the market, everything froze and it took about two years before they could go ahead again, Donna recalled.
While teaching at Columneetza Secondary School he ran an outdoor club, with Donna’s help.
“Our main trip was going around the Bowron Lakes on the long weekend in May and for about 10 days,” he said, noting about 24 students would go on the trip mostly Grade 12 and a few in Grade 11.
The students would meet at lunch time to plan and organize the trips, preparing and drying food for each meal, with some of them making cookbooks to hand down year to year.
Donna’s role was camp nurse, but the only thing she ever dished out were Band-aids, she said.
“We had excellent kids on those trips, we really did,” she said. “Once in a while when we are out for lunch we will see a bunch of people and they are some of those students that went around Bowron Lakes. It’s kind of neat.”
Local mining companies donated light weight canoes and the students raised money so gradually the outdoor club built up a supply of some equipment and purchased a few items to hand out.
Eventually Blaine was busy building homes so he stopped teaching.
For about five years he also went into logging, harvesting mountain pine beetle kill.
When the lumber market dropped in 1981, he was paying 24 per cent interest at the bank and Cariboo mills were buying very little lumber.
Selling some logs he hauled to Bella Coola to a Japanese customer, Blaine cut his losses.
“I was making five cents on the dollar - so that was the end of my logging.”
Donna left working at the hospital while Blaine was logging because he was gone from home so much and she wanted to be around home more for their sons Aaron and Jason.
She went to work at a clinic.
When she later returned to the hospital, she worked in the operating room where she stayed until retiring in 2005.
“Nursing was always very good to me. I was fortunate,” she said.
Over the years, Blaine would return to teaching a few times before solely focusing on his own business ventures.
They love living in the subdivision and are in a home Blaine built and renovated several times.
It has a good water supply, wide roads and is surrounded by Crown Land with lots of access to trails and the forest.
“We have a beautiful spring - in fact the legal name of the subdivision is Misty Spring Estates,” Donna said. “The spring attracts cougars and recently we had a grizzly bear.”
Last New Year’s Eve, the neighbours got together and had a bonfire to celebrate.
“It’s very neighbourly here,” Donna said.
The Fletts said they have taken advantage of all the Cariboo has to offer, enjoying camping, hunting and indoor recreation, including Blaine coaching hockey for many years.
Their six grandsons play or played hockey and one of the Fletts’ favourite pastimes is going to watch them play.
Raving about Williams Lake area amenities, Blaine said people living in larger cities would be surprised to learn how affordable it is to recreate in the Cariboo.
Recently they played tour guides from some visitors and enjoyed showing them the sites.
“We took them out to Farwell Canyon for a picnic and the next day we took them all around town,” Donna said. “There are an amazing number of places in town you can take people. They were thrilled.”
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