Jack Barker: Veteran. Builder. Family man. Risk taker. Born May 30, 1925, near Spy Hill, Sask., died July 2, 2023, in Blind Bay, B.C.; of natural causes; aged 98.
Jack Barker.Courtesy of family
Jack believed his success came through effort and common sense. “Water doesn’t run uphill,” was the kind of thing he’d repeat. He thought everyone was capable of the energy that he had.
Jack was born in a log cabin in Spy Hill, Sask., the product of British immigrants who were tough stock themselves. In Jack’s memoirs, he wrote the homestead was so cold that when the family stood sweating in front of a hot wood stove, the chill was so fierce the sweat froze on their backs.
Jack was 18 when he became a pilot in the Second World War. RCAF Squadron 435 was stationed in India and he flew supplies to the front lines and hospitals, earning special papers that allowed him to fly in “no-fly weather.”
His frequent war stories involved flying and fist fights and jungles. After the war, he met with his squadron every chance he could. (“They fight it again and again,” his wife would say. “And wouldn’t you know, they win it every time.”)
His love of flying never waned (later in life he owned his own plane and an airstrip) but back home in Spy Hill, he began playing hockey and bought a car. Jack never got his Grade 12, but he had a string of jobs in Saskatchewan. He was a salesman, a plumber, ran a cinderblock business and later owned a hardware store.
He also met an old school friend – Irene Firth – at a dance in 1946. The pair married a year later and stayed that way for 72 years. Jack and Irene raised seven children: Linda, Darlene, Debbie, Brenda, Terry, Wendy and Pat.
He believed in education through experience. He made his kids try everything: Girl Guides, baseball, figure skating, Sunday school (even though he and Irene didn’t go to church), swimming lessons, and so on. He drove his girls to piano lessons every week, a 45 kilometre drive each way. “Dad would get sleepy driving home at night so he would get one of us to slide over and steer while he operated the pedals,” Linda recalled.
After two decades of construction and the hardware business in Spy Hill, Jack moved the family to British Columbia in 1971. He traded his hardware store for shares in land near Shuswap Lake, in the southern interior. He saw the undeveloped land as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “Million-dollar views” he’d say. “I’ve been around the world. You can’t get that just anywhere.”
Jack’s belief in community building drove him to develop Shuswap Lake Estates, a large retirement community on 1,300 acres. He became wealthy but he didn’t play that up too much. He mostly wore Shuswap Lake golf shirts and old sweaters. But he wasn’t cheap. He made sure each of his 20 grandchildren saw Disneyland, inviting entire families to come with him and Irene. He had a winter home in Phoenix and bought a Tesla. He always had a Mercedes and drove it on the golf course paths, whether people were playing or not.
Jack took great joy in telling stories and it didn’t matter if you’d heard them before. He was not a fan of big government or anyone telling him what to do. He had 32 great-grandchildren, including one named after him, and was the kind of grandfather who offered a six year old a beer, and then handed it over if they said yes. July 1 was one of his favourite days and for decades he helped organize a Canada Day parade at Shuswap Lake, donating floats and cars for the event.
Jack never retired, he always mixed work and play in equal measure. The week before he died, he was still consulting Shuswap Lake Estate files and making plans.
For his memorial, Jack insisted that Frank Sinatra’s My Way was played. To the hundreds who attended, it seemed appropriate.
Jon Filson is Jack Barker’s grandson.
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