Ken Kirkby: Warrior Painter

By Patricia M. Fraser

KEN KIRKBY—WARRIOR PAINTER is a remarkable biography about a very remarkable man. It is, also, an unusual book about a very unusual man.

I have known Ken Kirkby since the day in 1990, when, as Speaker of the House of Commons, I agreed to the unveiling in the House of Common’s foyer, of his epic painting ISUMATAQ. This work of art became a vivid icon of our Inuit fellow Canadians. It introduced the Inuit nation as well as the powerful image of the Inukshuk to southern Canadians, and this symbol of welcome and promise of safe passage was appropriately adopted by the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
This is an enlightening story of a very intelligent, artistically endowed, determined and perhaps spiritually guided warrior for the conservation of the land, air and water upon which the continuation of all species, including our own, depends.

In a most unusual way, Patricia Fraser has portrayed the most personal aspects of Ken Kirkby’s life – his boyhood in Portugal, the influence of his family, his intellectual curiosity and his vision of the basic elements on which our survival is based. She reveals Kirkby’s frustrations, his successes, friends and those he loved, as well as those who admire and love him.
It is well worth reading, perhaps more than once.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Libros Libertad Publishing
• Release date: Apr 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781926763286

Patricia M. Fraser

PATRICIA FRASER’S career has enabled her to savour history and ambience from Canada’s Yukon to Australia to the Pacific Northwest of British Columbia. A lengthy affiliation with The Writer’s Craft, a Canadian editing service, provided the nuts and bolts of strong writing. Her fictional pieces often draw on childhood experiences in the Yukon, while a current work-in-progress is set amongst the Northwest coast Haida and Tsimsian First Nations. She is equally comfortable with non-fiction. Ken Kirkby—Warrior Painter is a biography focussing on one of Canada’s most inspiring advocates. “Kirkby’s determination to make a positive difference in the way we treat our land is an important subject,” she says, “but, with a larger-than-life character like Ken, magic cannot be overlooked.” Patricia writes from Salt Spring Island and enjoys quality time with her children, Jennifer, Bruce and Douglas, and their busy families on the west coast.

Book preview

Acknowledgements

American writer, GB Stern is quoted as saying, Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone. So, let my voice ring out in appreciation for the special people who made this book possible.

I’ll start with Ken Kirkby, the man behind these pages, with whom I’ve been privileged to share many hours (and more laughs) while distilling the pertinent moments within his journey to satisfactorily portray the milestones. Thank you, Ken, for the opportunity to ‘pursue the magic.’

Amongst my favourite quotations is one from Albert Schweitzer. At some time, in everyone’s life, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter from another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

I’ve been blessed to share my creative moments with a number of fellow-writers. Amongst these brightest of sparks, I’d list Karen Autio, Loraine Kemp, Eileen Holland, and MaryAnn Thompson. Your generous encouragement means so much to me. Thank heavens for e-mail!

To my superlative gang of Wednesday Writers: Gail Meyer, Mary Lowery, Carolyn Grayson, and Truus Meijer Drees—still with us in spirit, thank you for the critiques and the restorative warmth of your faith in my ability. May the working lunches go on forever!

Precious friendship is essential, as is the wisdom to know when tough love is the answer to rekindling the spark. For that I am forever indebted to my soul sisters: Karen Howatson, Elaine Kotow, and Heather Webb.

And, most especially, I treasure Jenny Fraser McAllister, my rock and my editor; Bruce & Doug Fraser, my anchors and my pride; and my Donald, who held me close and taught me to be free … thank you for the years.

A book is a long road that provides frequent and unexpected turnings for both the author and the readers. Thank you to all the wonderful Nile Creekers who contributed to this story of a little group that could, and did, overcome pessimism and physical obstacles to bring an entire water system back to health. To Manolis and his efficient team at Libros Libertad, and to Dick Beamish, John Fraser, and other generous souls whose belief in the story and my abilities to tell it combined to make it happen.

I’d like to think we are all richer for the experience.

~~

Painter’s Ode

I’ve sung the song of colors, murmured the painter’s

lips, I’ve sung pastels and ochre, the chiaroscuro and

the oblique, the mesmerising and the delightful, tools and

armoury opposite the gross, the tip of my brush eternity.

Arrows can’t pierce my heart, bad words can’t blacken

my aura nor evil sight can blemish my innocence.

I’ve sung. Diaphanous I’ve stayed, people’s tongues

can’t spoil me and in the hands of gross I am but a bad

loot. Chirps of birds I’ve painted, women’s skin I’ve

touched, on humble table food I’ve enjoyed, my brush’s

wealth reverently laid unto the feet of the Eternal.

Nothing of me remains but the softest mist over

the void until I shall return, a raindrop, to moist roots

of grain, to enter a man’s sperm, to will my rebirth.

Your eyes stop at the turn of the road though mine

see far in my past, further into my future: one fruit,

one flower, a newborn to the next virgin who will bear me.

~ Manolis

Chapter 1:

A Disquieting Discovery

"The test of success is not what you do when you are on top.

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom."

(George S. Patton, US Army)

~~

Standing in the doorway of his cottage, Ken Kirkby repeated the words like a mantra: There’s a recipe for the cure for everything. It is simply curiosity, desire and discipline. This conviction had worked for him in the past.

The tidy cottage at the end of an unnamed road on the outskirts of the hamlet of Bowser seemed to radiate self-sufficiency from its position overlooking the pebble beach. The door was open, framing the sad-faced man with the cigarette in his hand. Waves scratched at the beach as lap by successive lap, the incoming tide reclaimed lost ground and grey skies added to the winter-raw feel of the day.

The steaming cup of coffee warmed my hand and my wool jacket held off the chill. The salt air dissipated any sense of claustrophobia. My mind was freewheeling. It has always been a strange place filled with long and winding trails but, with all that had happened over the past year, it was an increasing struggle to follow any linear path. As I was ruminating on this thought, I lit a cigarette, took a couple of puffs before setting it in the ashtray on the table by the door.

It was so automatic—coffee and smokes. But as I put the cigarette down, my fingers brushed another and I became aware that it was also freshly lit. There was a third one burning quietly in the same ashtray.

Time and memory warped. I didn’t remember lighting them! A cold lump formed in my stomach and I thought, Oh, buddy. You are not in good shape here.

~~

Ken was sixty-one-years old when he turned his back on Vancouver. He was a force to be reckoned with on two continents; as boy and man, he had learned to defend his views before any and all authority figures and won his points. He’d challenged and survived academics, politicians, dictatorships and the Arctic. He had crammed more into one lifetime than most of us could manage in twice that time. So, what had brought this man to the edge of the precipice, broken in spirit and health? It was a fairly human condition.

By all accounts, Ken Kirkby has a magnetic personality, a charming nature and a wicked sense of humour. His green eyes twinkle with devilment or deepen with feeling when he is sharing some discovery. For all his intensity, he exhibits a hint of vulnerability. In short, he is a man who appeals to women. This may be because he likes an appreciative audience, and women like to be liked. Men on the other hand relate more to the fearless buccaneer that lurks just beneath the surface.

There has been no shortage of women in his life, most of them for limited duration. And then in 1987, he met Karen. She was a brilliant lawyer with a solid reputation in Toronto’s legal circles. She was also petite, beautiful, and intelligent—a lethal combination for Ken. She, in turn, was attracted by the drive and passion exuded by this unconventional, high-energy, painter.

Ken imagined he had, at last, found a woman who was not only his equal, but who was not dead set on changing him into a three-piece suit working at a ‘real’ job. They were living in Toronto, and it was a hectic time. He was preparing to launch his epic work of art, the astonishingly beautiful Isumataq, an oil-on-canvas painting measuring 152 feet long by 12 feet high. His dream for Isumataq was to bring to public attention the case for justice and fair treatment for the voiceless Canadians living in the largely overlooked north. He had embarked on this project as a means of fulfilling a promise made to an Inuit grandmother some thirty years earlier, during his time in the Arctic.

He and Karen were totally smitten with each other. She was a self-involved and ambitious woman but, occupied as he was with the shifting political scene in the north, and intent on keeping the Inuit story fresh for television and the print media, Ken seemed utterly unaware that when she came onto the scene, many of his closest friends quietly drifted away.

After several idyllic years, the dynamics of their life together began to change. In 1992, Karen announced that she wanted to pursue a new career and suggested they move to Vancouver where she could function most effectively as an environmental lawyer. Toronto was no longer fulfilling her professional needs. Besides, she reasoned, Ken always seemed so happy when he spoke of his earlier life on the West Coast.

Initially surprised, Ken agreed that environmental law was a good fit with Karen’s interests and abilities. The timing was opportune as Isumataq had been successfully launched and the establishment of the Inuit territory, Nunavut, had been achieved. It was now Karen’s turn to shine. Fortuitously, Ken’s son, Michael, was also making plans to attend university in British Columbia. So, despite the demands of promoting the gigantic painting, currently on display in Ontario Place and drawing the attendant circus of citizens, students, media and others attracted to the unusual, Ken arranged to move the family to the west coast.

Settling back into Vancouver was not without its challenges. Ken threw himself into his perceived role as house-husband, but his dedication to the woman he saw as his soulmate bore unexpectedly sour fruit.

In his mind, he was reciprocating Karen’s faith in him during their chaotic years in Toronto. However, without the aura of fantastical public relations stunts and media frenzy that had shaped their life in the spotlight, his golden lustre seemed to fade in Karen’s eyes. She became argumentative, disdainful and secretive. It is said that 80% of our lives are actually lived at the subconscious level, and it seemed that he was being relegated to the minor part of her consciousness.

Hindsight is perceptive, and when Ken thought back to their long drive from Toronto to Vancouver, restricted to close quarters in the truck hauling their belongings, he’d occasionally questioned just how well he knew this woman he loved so deeply. There was an element of Alice in Wonderland about her—she had reinvented herself more than once in the past, leaving relationships, friends and colleagues behind. No question, she was a woman of strong will, and in part Ken had successfully navigated those exhausting years at the end of the Isumataq project because of the security he’d found in their partnership. But, in retrospect, he began to wonder if she had metamorphosed again in her anticipation of a new career on the West Coast.

Karen was very clever but continually at war with the way she believed she was perceived. The problem was that she didn’t know when to stop fighting, even if you were entirely on her side.

Ken had always dreamed of belonging to someone and that need lingered. To have the warmth and companionship fade away now that he had time to devote to her in the pursuit of her dreams seemed to be nothing short of cruel. Whatever it took to appease Karen would be done.

~~

Now, in Bowser, Ken was faced with the sudden realisation that he had been living life on autopilot. It was a severe jolt for the man who prided himself on being attentive at all times to what was going on, both within himself and in the world surrounding him. As a quicksilver dawn slipped above the scattering of islands offshore, Ken made a fresh pot of coffee and realized he’d made a breakthrough. It had been a long night coming to grips with the situation. Self-awareness was a fundamental state of mind for him, but as he replayed the recent years, he could identify countless occurrences that had ultimately reduced him to this astonishing loss of control.

His elusive mind was stubborn in its refusal to follow an orderly chain of thoughts, and he became aware that for months, perhaps even years, his overloaded brain had taken refuge in the distractions provided by an intelligent mind. No matter how vigorously he attempted to discipline it to the process, it slid sideways into something less conflicting.

The act of thinking had become busy work, necessary in order to avoid the bleak despair that filled him, most especially intensified when Karen had withdrawn. But he now recognised it was an escape mechanism that needed to be meticulously managed. For the first time in a long while, he was looking with a clear eye at the core of his anguish rather than retreating from it. Gradually he was being filled with certainty that, with this awakening, he was exactly where he should be.

My real job now was to be painstaking in programming my healing, much as I did in Portugal when my dad turned the problem of beating my recurring childhood illness over to me.

Ken was frequently ill in his early years. Although no medical expense was spared, the ailment remained unnamed. He had grown weaker, thinner and yet more tired following relocation from Britain to Spain. However, in his mother’s Spanish culture, weakness—whether physical or mental—was never to be acknowledged. It was only after the family rejoined Ken’s dad in Parede, Portugal that the six-year-old was permitted to articulate his concerns. The renewed quest for a cure became a secret shared between Francisco, the Portuguese fisherman who became Ken’s mentor and closest friend, Ken’s father, and himself.

Following a year of inconclusive specialist appointments, a tentative diagnosis was made that he was suffering from a form of leukaemia. The three of them were sitting in a favourite spot on top of the cliff on the edge of the village, watching the constantly moving sea far below. With a sigh, Ken’s dad voiced his personal frustration.

I am a man with considerable influence, but in this matter I am completely powerless. The one thing I love most on earth—you—I can do nothing for.

The boy was shocked to see tears trickle from his father’s eyes.

You are going to have to take command of yourself. You must be as strong as the whole Roman Empire, Jesus Christ, Buddha, and Krishna all together. Go deep within yourself. Raise an army to fight these evil creatures that are destroying your blood.

The youngster thought this a sensible idea. He would create millions and millions of little fighters and turn them loose. They would run down his veins and each time the bad blood cells came out, his good fighters would slaughter them! Strangely enough, that decision seemed to mark a turning point.

Whether triggered by the power of positive thought or the clouds of bromine, similar to iodine, produced by a type of seaweed on that part of the coast, or something remaining to be discovered—no medical authority was able to pinpoint the cure. Ken’s body grew stronger and he was no longer troubled by his mysterious illness.

It seemed entirely logical to Ken that his dad, whom he respected above all others, had put him in control of his own body and therefore of his life. And from that time forward, Ken Kirkby refused to acknowledge the right or responsibility of any other person over his actions, decisions, or the way he lived his life.

This was the root of his self-reliance. It would wrongly be interpreted throughout his life as arrogance.

~~

In the days following his midnight epiphany in his seaside cottage in Bowser, Ken set out to reinvent himself. To begin, he marshalled his intellect and inner determination to resolve the problem of automatic reaction. He would no longer permit himself to lapse into any form of mindless action. He analysed every move. Which side of the bed do you get out on? How do you start your day? Which foot do you step out of the shower with?

He set out to intentionally disorder the routine order of his life in all aspects and for the next six months he monitored, considered and reordered each act, an exercise that, in his words, required white-hot discipline.

Ken found that focusing on his every move made him more aware of the minutia of the world around him. His thoughts were clearer. His daily walks along the beach began to reinstate balance between man and nature. Best of all, his sense of curiosity was returning.

It would be healthy for each of us to take time off every tenth year to just check things out because we are no longer what we were. We are creatures of the universe, which is in perpetual flux every millionth of a second, and this truth shouldn’t be offset by the fact that we are also creatures of habit.

It’s not easy, but it imparts real insights. Until we can take an honest look at ourselves, there isn’t a hope in hell that we can do anything other than make the same disappointing mistakes, over and over again.

~~

Ken was facing a crisis that had been building for half a lifetime. The Toronto years spent tethered to the giant canvases of Isumataq together with endless hours chasing necessary funds on the rubber-chicken circuit had taken a physical toll. Those years of obsessive labour in combination with the unhappy time after his return to Vancouver with Karen played havoc with his health. He ate poorly if at all, drank too much, and most of his friends busied themselves elsewhere in realization that they couldn’t compete with Ken’s dedication to the northern project. His waistline increased from a firm 32 to an uncomfortable 39 and overall his strength and vitality declined markedly.

When he cut his ties with Karen, he left mainland British Columbia as well. One of the first fishing destinations he had visited as a new immigrant to Canada was Nile Creek, a few hundred metres from his present location. Named for William Bowser, a former Premier of the Province of British Columbia, Bowser is a minute community with a long history. It is situated on the eastern shore of Vancouver Island within a string of holiday and retirement communities in the area known as Lighthouse Country. These residential hamlets follow the easily accessible seashore between the larger communities of Parksville-Qualicum to the south, and Courtney-Comox to the north. In the 1940s, the area had become famous because of the Pink River, the early name for Nile Creek. The seasonal run of homecoming salmon, more pink than silver in their waning cycle, choked the river in their drive to seek the upstream pools and gravel riffs where they could spawn in relative safely. Despite the falling numbers of returning salmon through the 1990s, Nile Creek continued to be one of his favourite places—a peaceful, restorative out of the way escape, and when he needed space to heal, it became his destination.

It seemed reasonable that if he were serious about reinventing himself, he should begin with the basics. A healthy body generally encouraged a healthy mind. He started with solitary beach walks, and as his stamina improved, he ranged further. In the course of his exercise routine, Ken eventually explored every beach, hidden cove and tidal pool from Parksville to Bowser to Courtney in the mid-island area of Vancouver Island. He chatted with fishermen and shopkeepers and old-timers with stories to tell. It provided a fine opportunity to learn the history and the folklore of the area he now considered home.

On this mission to return himself to physical and mental health, he was dogged. Close friends became concerned when they learned he had not only changed the way in which he did everything, but he also appeared no longer to have any desire for either of his life-long passions: fishing and painting. The truth was that for some time his heart had not been part of either occupation. For nearly six months he had not even entered the studio he rented together with his cottage from his neighbour, Ken Harris. He says, Even in those areas I’d been on autopilot.

Chapter 2:

Warriors Come in Many Shapes

"We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies." 

(Shirley Abbott, Writer)

~~

Ken Kirkby inherited genes from a thousand years of determined and intelligent men and the clever women who worked beside them. In each generation, the face of the world inhabited by his ancestors was left improved. If he feels some pressure to leave his own imprint on his world, he chooses to do so by inspiring others as he has been inspired; by restoring what has been spoiled and by righting what is wrong. Justice is an important word in his vocabulary.

His father, Ken Kirkby, Sr. turned his back on both a fortune and his influential British steel family as a young man. He left his assured place in Britain to make a successful life in Australia and eventually returned to England with a reputation for a sound ability to turn failing companies into profitable ventures. With World War II on the horizon, he was seconded by Winston Churchill’s team to transform the venerable but struggling Rover Motor Company into an efficient, profit-making war machine.

In 1938, he met and married Ken’s mother, Louise May Chesney. Her father was a respected Spanish industrialist whose family traced their roots back to Rurik of the Rus, a Dane whose history was recorded in written form in 746 AD. Ken was born in 1940 and his sister three years later. The Kirkby and Chesney families left recession strapped Britain for Spain in 1946 and the Kirkby family ultimately settled in the Portuguese village of Parede, a coastal village south of Lisbon. Their neighbours were diplomats or professional elite, but Ken’s father preferred to do his own gardening and knew the children of all his employees by their first names.

Ken’s childhood was unorthodox by any measure. Their family home on the Avenue of Princes welcomed many of the brightest minds of the European world at the time, but he ran barefoot with the Gypsy kids, bartered his drawings in the marketplace and escaped his mother’s restrictions to clamber over the starkly beautiful and precipitous cliffs on the edge of the blue ocean.

From the age of three, when he discovered the magic world he could create with crayon on paper, Ken had a satisfactory outlet for his creativity. He seemed intuitively to understand the mechanics of painting and drawing. This skill was nurtured by both his father and his grandfather, as was his fascination with history.

Recurring illness had made school attendance problematic and while the boy had a brilliantly logical mind, he couldn’t seem to master reading and writing. Kirkby, Sr. suspected that his son was struggling with what came to be known as dyslexia. He arranged for private tutors in those subjects Ken found interesting and, blessed with unstoppable curiosity and a retentive memory, he flourished in the unusual circumstances.

Undeniably erudite, Ken proudly claims less than one semester of formal education. Although pronounced a genius by academics and others, he has refused both Honorary Doctorates and university credits claiming such window dressing would be no advantage in achieving the goals he has set for himself.

Scholastic tutors came and served their time, but Ken gives particular credit to four mentors who endowed him with an outstanding education and, as he says, influenced the man he became.

He spent much of his youth doing physical work under Francisco’s sharp eye. The knowledgeable, old fisherman became his tutor in practicalities and life skills, sharing his duties as village handyman with the boy. Ken was seven when they first met and in his eyes, the tall, gnarled Portuguese man was endowed with magical qualities. He lived in an intricately constructed two-room shack affixed to a cave wall and cantilevered above a reef-bordered bay. This became Ken’s schoolroom and sanctuary.

Under Francisco guiding hand he learned to read the moods and warnings of the ocean and the winds, to talk the fish into the pot and to cook seafood seasoned with spicy piri-piri and a mash of red peppers because, in the words of the old man, What woman wants a man who cannot cook? Ken learned to shift rocks several times his own size using hand tools and his logical brain, learning the laws of physics in the