In Kechika Chronicler, award-winning historian Jay Sherwood delves
into the diaries of reclusive packer William Freer to uncover daily life
in one of the most remote areas of BC.
Willard Freer lived in remote areas of northern BC for most of his life.
Born in Kamloops in 1910 and raised in the Peace River country, Freer
came to the Kechika River valley in 1942, where he worked for a number
of years with famed packer and guide Skook Davidson. He then built a
cabin about 35 kilometres to the north and spent the rest of his life in
the valley, and at Fireside, an Alaska Highway lodge near the junction
of the Kechika and Liard rivers. By all accounts, Freer was a quiet,
introverted person, who faithfully kept a daily diary from 1942 to 1975.
Most of the entries are brief, but cumulatively they provide a detailed
record of life in northern BC and southern Yukon Territory. Due to his
proximity to the famed Alaska Highway and the historic Davie Trail,
Willard encountered many of the Indigenous people who lived, worked, and
travelled through the Kechika valley, as well as casual visitors, bush
pilots, government survey parties including the Geological Survey of
Canada, major mining companies, and branches of the US Army in northern
BC during World War II. Willard Freer's diaries are the most extensive
written record of daily life in a remote region of BC.
