Island Roots
Charles McNeill, former UN forest advisor, shares the deep family ties and spiritual connection that bind him to BC’s Bowen Island
Charles McNeill splits his time between two islands.
Each is roughly 60 square kilometres in size. One is on the east coast of the United States and is home to almost two million people; the other is on the west coast of Canada and has 3,700 inhabitants.
Manhattan and Bowen Island may seem like incongruous touchstones for the former Senior Forests and Climate Advisor to the UN’s Environment Programme but both have been woven into the very fabric of his being.
“It was as a child visiting Bowen Island that I learned that a healthy environment is everyone’s birthright and that everybody should have this experience,” he says from the Bowen home where, post-pandemic, he spends three-quarters of the year.
“The wild nature just got into my soul.”
It was in New York that Charles forged a career as a passionate advocate for our natural world, especially our forests, and the people who are affected by the blithe mistreatment of its resources.
He recently stayed at the Vatican, where he met Pope Francis as part of the conference on Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge.
Charles is back on Bowen to finish his report. Writing about how we can, and must, steer ourselves away from cataclysmic climate disaster, the only distraction out his front window is the ferry chugging along BC’s Sunshine Coast.
A few weeks earlier, he’d been absolutely delighted when three orcas treated him to a playful display of leaps and turns in the waters just outside his home.
Video by Charles McNeill
Video by Charles McNeill
A dedicated ocean swimmer, Charles says he’s a bit more cautious now that he knows he might not be alone in the waters below his deck. “I look both ways before going out there.”
Living next to the cabin his grandparents bought on Bowen Island in 1919, Dr. Charles McNeill is often overcome by a deep sense of connection to family and the land. Photo by Martha Perkins
Living next to the cabin his grandparents bought on Bowen Island in 1919, Dr. Charles McNeill is often overcome by a deep sense of connection to family and the land. Photo by Martha Perkins
Just steps away is the place where his grandparents and parents came to nourish their souls. Mack Eastman, Charles' grandfather, was the first head of the University of British Columbia’s history department.
He was recuperating from surgery when he first discovered Bowen Island in 1916. Its pull on his heartstrings held firm during his two years of battle in Europe. One of the first things he did upon returning to Vancouver was to buy a tiny cabin on an acre of land
on Bowen’s northwest shore.
The cost in 1919? Three hundred and fifty dollars.
Mack Eastman and Antonia Larribe first met in Paris in 1911. She was studying to be an artist; he was working towards his PhD in history. McNeill family photo
Mack Eastman and Antonia Larribe first met in Paris in 1911. She was studying to be an artist; he was working towards his PhD in history. McNeill family photo
It was here he convinced his bride to spend their summers.
Paris-born Antonia Larribe was an accomplished painter who studied under Fernand Leger. It was challenging for her to leave her cosmopolitan life but she too was captivated by their island idylls.
Their daughter Isabelle (Charles' mother) was only a baby when, in 1922, family friend Bliss Carman came for a visit months after being named Canada’s poet laureate.
“My friend's cabin is at the extreme end of the island,” Bliss Carman says in a typed essay that hangs on the wall in Charles' Bowen home. “Built on a hillside facing the sea and surrounded by tall trees, far away from the modern colony near the dock, it is a haven of serenity and peace. From the porch of the cabin, you can hear the booming of the surf and this lulled me to sleep many a night….
“In the evening we would sit outside and watch the sunset. The water's hue changes from gold to rose, from rose to jade green, then to a deep purple. Sometimes a sailboat slipped by, bathed in rainbow colours.”
Isabelle Eastman, the mother of Charles McNeill, was a baby when Canada's poet laureate Bliss Carman came to visit the family on Bowen Island in 1922. The photo was syndicated in newspapers across Canada. McNeill family photo
Isabelle Eastman, the mother of Charles McNeill, was a baby when Canada's poet laureate Bliss Carman came to visit the family on Bowen Island in 1922. The photo was syndicated in newspapers across Canada. McNeill family photo
In 1925, Mack Eastman was asked to represent Canada in the League of Nations and the family moved to Geneva. The Second World War brought them back to Canada.
Bowen Island had remained the constant in their lives. “It was my mother’s favourite place in the world,” Charles says.
And yet she too was wrested away by an opportunity too good to turn down: her husband, Ian McNeill, was invited to do his medical residency at the Mayo Clinic. Their family grew to six — three boys and a girl — with Charles and his twin brother Harry born shortly before Dr. McNeill was invited to practise internal medicine in Palo Alto, California.
Isabelle joined the faculty of Stanford University as a professor of French literature.
As often as they could, the McNeills would pack the children into a car and begin the long trek to Bowen Island.
In 1956, the McNeill siblings — Harry and his twin Charles, Katherine and Ted — drove to Bowen Island from their home in Palo Alto, California. McNeill family photo
In 1956, the McNeill siblings — Harry and his twin Charles, Katherine and Ted — drove to Bowen Island from their home in Palo Alto, California. McNeill family photo
Charles remembers visiting Bowen in his parents’ later years. “I was lying out on the rock out there in front of the cottage. I felt the deepest sense of belonging you could ever imagine," he said.
"I was one with the granite; it was sort of like a deep home. It was an amazing experience of belonging and the family connection.”
Born in Paris and trained as an artist, Antonia Eastman also felt at home on Bowen Island. Here, in 1921, she's pregnant with Charles McNeill's mother, Isabell. Photo by Martha Perkins
Born in Paris and trained as an artist, Antonia Eastman also felt at home on Bowen Island. Here, in 1921, she's pregnant with Charles McNeill's mother, Isabell. Photo by Martha Perkins
That connection was also felt by his wife Joan.
“She decided we were going to live here,” Charles says with the smile that is his natural default. “I said, ‘What?’ I’d been in and out of New York with the United Nations for 30 years. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever end up here. It just seemed off the beaten path, the opposite of the dynamic, in-the-world life I was having."
But, during a short stay at his parents' cottage around 2004, something magical happened.
“I remember running around Killarney Lake and this huge owl came swooping down and touched my shoulder — whoop! It was the silent power of this being; it was like an ethereal memo from nature.”
The house next to the family cabin came up for sale a week later. The McNeills bought it sight unseen.
And while horrified when it burnt to the ground six weeks later, it also gave them the opportunity to build the light-strewn house of their desires. It was the first platinum greenhouse on the island.
It was on Bowen in 2011 that Joan died of liver cancer, five years after being told she had only two months to live. Those years spent together on the island make Bowen a place that Charles cannot imagine leaving.
“When Joanie was dying, Jupiter was at an all-time historic closeness to the earth; it was so bright. With binoculars, you could see its frickin’ moons. I felt like Galileo in 1609."
Charles reflects on the intense awareness it took Galileo to break through the paradigms of the Aristotelean world of his time, how seeing the light around Jupiter changing each day helped Galileo deduce that these must be moons going around the planet.
“Interestingly, two weeks ago in the Vatican, the meeting I was in was held in the Pontifical of Sciences and on the wall there’s a picture of Galileo.”
All the world under the stars becomes one.
Bowen Island sunrise. Photo by Murray Atherton.
Bowen Island sunrise. Photo by Murray Atherton.
You don’t have to own an oceanfront home on Bowen Island to enjoy its natural, artistic and gastronomic charms.
BC Ferries runs an almost hourly service from Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver. People are encouraged to come as foot passengers, especially since so many places to visit are within walking distance.
Crippen Park has numerous trails, including the circumnavigation of Killarney Lake or, for the more adventurous, a trek up Mount Gardner with its stunning views of the Howe Sound and Sunshine Coast.
There’s a bevy of restaurants in Snug Cove and Artisan Square, with a surprising array of culinary excellence, as well as shops and galleries.
If you want to go farther afield you can rent e-bikes (head for the trails at Grafton Lake or Cape Roger Curtis) or explore the coast by sea kayak or fishing boat. There’s even a nine-hole golf course.
Martha Perkins
Martha Perkins is a retired community newspaper editor who believes in the power of storytelling to forge connections to the land and each other.
Embrace Canada with Landsby
Landsby creates unique and immersive experiences that not only provide travellers with purposeful and enriching trips but aim to positively impact the communities being explored.
