David Northcott is showing his two visitors how to work the television in his home office. The screen sits above his computer terminal. The technology dominates the wall. Tucked away in the shadows of a corner wall though is something much more impressive. You have to look close to realize what it is. It isn’t an ordinary certificate, although he does have plenty of meaningful ones in his office at work. It’s not even a university degree.

“Is that your Order of Canada?” I ask him after spying it in the dark corner.

“Yes,” he replies almost bashfully.

He’s modestly reminded me before his recognition is the most common of the Orders of Canada given out, as if it’s no big deal. Well, it is a big deal. After all, 99.99999 per cent of the country’s population will never get near being one of those honourees who gets to go to Rideau Hall to receive the Order from the Governor General.

David certainly deserves it. He has played a huge role in the Winnipeg and Manitoba community. I’ll elaborate, but first some background.

David Northcott is our second cousin. His father, Stanley, and our father Ross Granger, were cousins. Father’s mother Dorothy was a Northcott and Stan’s aunt.

Stan was a super guy and an RCMP officer that was involved in mostly an international role. In fact, David was born in Rome 65 years ago. He mostly grew up in Ottawa but like the rest of his siblings – Bob, Erica and Andrea – he graduated from Point Grey Senior Secondary in the Kerrisdale neighbourhood of Vancouver where the family eventually settled.

Our family didn’t see David much back then. We got to know Stan, his wife Virginia, who was a real character, Erica and Andrea much more. While attending UBC, David met a Kamloops woman, Kathy Chisholm, married her and settled into Kamloops working in the financial industry.

He later got transferred to Winnipeg, eventually working in setting up community programs. That’s what he was up to when Leigh Newton came calling in the 1980s. The graphic artist had witnessed what the Harvest food gleaning organization had accomplished in New York and wanted to set up something similar in her hometown. That’s how Winnipeg Harvest was born.

As they worked together to start it up it soon became obvious David was the one who should be running it.

They worked on gathering excess food that would be thrown out for one reason or another and then redistributing it through regular neighbourhood and regional food banks. The wanted to help those that used their services to get back on their feet. David would say the intent was to make Harvest obsolete. But in some ways it worked too well. Instead Harvest continues to grow and grow and grow.

It was first run out of a cold, old warehouse on St. Joseph Street in St. Boniface. That’s where it was when I arrived to reside in Winnipeg in 1989. At first, I didn’t contact David because he didn’t really know me. But his face kept popping up everywhere, in newspapers and on television. His ability to be concise, make good points and do it in an entertaining fashion were gold to reporters.

Since I was working an evening shift at the Winnipeg Sun, I figured I could at least afford a couple of hours on Wednesdays, especially since it was one of my days off and I could play tennis later in the day. After a few times volunteering in the office I finally introduced myself to the Big Cheese of Harvest saying, “Hi, I’m your cousin. Second cousin actually.” He responded with a great big grin, the one that sometimes seems like its permanently implanted on his face.

David is an unbelievable person. Not only is he a media gem, he has the uncanny ability to equally go into boardrooms and talk their talk, lobby and debate politicians without rancour, and interact with volunteers and clients. (Many of Harvest’s volunteers are people that use the food bank but also want to find a way to get back on their own feet.) That’s a skill set that’s hard to come by.

One morning, I was in my usual slumber after working a late shift at the Sun. I was listening to the inimitable Peter Gzowski on his national CBC Radio show. He recalled a visit he’d made to Winnipeg Harvest and called David “one of the country’s great Canadians.” That got me awake. Having a broadcasting icon say that about my second cousin brought a lump to my throat. Wow!

Gzowski was right, as he often was.

It wasn’t long after I started volunteering at Harvest that they made plans to move to a property near the junction of Notre Dame and McPhillips on Winnipeg Street. It was larger and warmer.

They didn’t stop there. They’ve expanded the footprint and the services. It provides programs that teach clients about taxes, health, cooking, job searches and much, much more. Harvest employs more than 30 and has volunteers all over the place on any given day. They’re working in the bread room, the warehouse, the loading dock, administration, driving trucks. You name the task, there’s somebody willing to do it.

They also work on developing innovative food sources so society isn’t reliant on the typical commercial ones.

One morning while Clive and I stayed at David and Kathy’s new home on the banks of the Seine River (the one in St. Vital, not Paris), David gave us a tour. It’s almost overwhelming seeing all the hustle and bustle and the scope of the important work that’s being done there. Most of it is accomplished through various types of donations without government money.

David, with the exception of a couple of years absence (he resigned to run for the Liberals in a federal election, and after working for other organizations the Harvest board of directors begged him, errr make  that, brought him back in the fold), has been the organization’s executive director.

Despite the position’s heavy demands, he and Kathy raised three amazing daughters. The oldest is Siri, who I first met as a teenager infatuated with budding Winnipeg Jets superstar Teemu Selanne. The sniper was a supporter of Harvest and there’s a neat photo of a teenage Siri wearing a cool hat and a friend on each side of Selanne at a Harvest fundraiser held at the Mona Lisa restaurant on Corydon Avenue. One of her uncles, Rick Chisholm, was a big cheese at TSN and when he’d come to Winnipeg to do a Blue Bombers broadcast he’d recruit Siri to work sound on the sidelines.

Siri moved out to my neck of the woods to work for Intrawest, the company that ran Whistler/Blackcomb among many operations. When she got married to a local, Chris, I was honoured to be invited to the wedding. They lived in Port Coquitlam but became another victim of Greater Vancouver’s unaffordable housing. The family, including daughter Zoe and son Griffin, are now living in the old homestead in Winnipeg’s Wolseley district.

Second oldest, Allison, has worked her way up the CBC ladder to become The National’s Montreal reporter. Her husband is also a CBC Montreal employee. The youngest, Kaley, is a teacher in Edinburgh after marrying a Brit she met at university.

So, you see, David Northcott, is both an ordinary Canadian and an extraordinary one.

Thanks a bunch

Clive and I can’t thank David and Kathy enough for putting us up for three nights. It was a fun time, especially the beautiful evening when Siri’s family came over and we feasted on the patio overlooking the Seine. They also were kind enough to allow Brody to stay the night even though he arrived after they went to bed, and they left before he awoke and we resumed our trip east.

Falconing

At last report, Brody was enjoying himself in Falcon Lake, a resort town just west of the Manitoba-Ontario border. Don’t blame him. It’s a nice spot, especially at this time of the year.

Back in Fort Mac

Ian’s family is back in business in Fort McMurray. Ian returned to the home last week and despite a little smoke smell and eight-inch grass, the house was in good shape. Rosamond and Matthew were to return on the weekend.

Kilometre count

Day 35: Kenora to Dryden 139 km; Total: 2,965 km

Day 36: Dryden to Ignace 110 km; Total: 3,125 km