Richard Eugene McKay is twice the person most Canadians are, chronologically speaking. On Sept. 4, he turned 102. When he arrived at his birthday party in a convoy of classic automobiles, courtesy of the Prospectors Car Club, he looked and sounded like someone planning on 103.
“We believe he’s the oldest person in Quesnel but we couldn’t get that verified,” said Joann Taylor, one of the many friends who keep McKay in a circle of love. “The thing with him is, he’s still in really good health. He’s exercising every day, doing yoga, and his stories are amazing. I thought I knew his life, but far from it. Every time we get together, he tells us a new one. He still likes to chitter-chatter.”
McKay’s isn’t just a long life, it’s a busy one. He was born in a log ranch house in the Riske Creek area. He embraced the cowboy lifestyle with full gusto: roping, riding, shooting, working cattle, out in the wildlife and wild weather, and enjoying family life and the many neighbours and cowhands who were around. He had two sisters, Hazel and Joan, each of them born in two-year intervals to mother Emma Jean and father Orville.
“My folks moved in 1912 from Oregon to the ranch in Riske Creek, about 35 miles from Williams Lake,” McKay told The Observer. His grandfather and two local boys built their cabin and the same three built that rural community’s first schoolhouse, as well, in 1914.
He was a natural athlete, and was especially successful as an amateur boxer.
His father fought in the First World War. McKay was engaged at home with the Second, as a member of the Canadian Rangers. One of his postings was at Bella Coola, believed to be a possible Japanese invasion target.
While no combat took place, McKay still had plenty of risk involved in his hardworking lifestyle. He recalls a time in about 1967 that he almost didn’t come home from the day’s work.
“If old Mother Nature had waited another hour, I’d have been gone a long time ago,” he said. “The whole thing came down (a landslide). We were building fish ladders in the Chilcotin River, way above Riske Creek, and when we were having breakfast, all of a sudden everything shook, we looked at one another and a farmer, Mr. Dunlop, ran outside and went up to the turn, and saw it all coming down the river. And that’s where we would have been. I’d have been gone.”
And soon he was, out of a sense of bigger adventure.
“I got out because I wanted to make a little more money, and I wanted to see more of the world. I made the right decision. I could come home.”
Fast-forwarding through the decades: he spent a lot of time living in the United States, especially in the mining industry and tire profession in Minnesota. He went to the Yukon and Northwest Territories and did some prospecting, some construction. He also wrote poetry.
He was comfortable at a rodeo, and had many friends who were stars in the show-ring.
But his interest in history and the nature of things went far beyond his early upbringing. Drumheller, the Snowbirds, the sailing ship Nonsuch, even the cosmos all hold a fascination with him.
He and his wife Nora came back to the Cariboo in their later decades of life and operated a trailer park for many years in the Rich Bar neighbourhood at the south end of town.
He remembers the day Nora died, the 23rd of February, he just couldn’t quite remember the year. But it has been 30 years since then. He has outlived his children, as well, and his sisters.
Almost everyone has a curiosity about his longevity. What’s his secret? He isn’t shy about declaring what’s kept him in this strong state so long: eat healthy food and regular exercise.
This recipe made him the focus of a feature article by Northern Health titled Healthy Aging In Action, talking about how he has a pull-up bar in his doorway, lifts weights, stretches every day, focuses on balance and strength exercises to prevent falls.
“Yoga has been a part of Rich’s life for decades, starting when he was a student in the 1930s,” the article said. McKay was also quoted as saying the modern grocery store was “a potential mine field” and one needed to choose healthy foods.
He was a mere pup of 95 at the time it was written. On his 99th birthday, he jumped out of an airplane for his first parachute adventure. He liked it so much he did it again the same day.
For his 100th birthday, Joann and her husband Ed took him on a trip back to Riske Creek to see the old home site. Then there was a party for him at the home of Joe and Trina Wiebe.
“They took care of us. We’ve got to take care of them,” said Joe about why younger generations should step up to befriend elders, like so many have with McKay.
“When he was born, it was horse and buggy days,” said Joe. “I moved to Williams Lake when I was 18, and it was always paved in my day, all the way to Lee’s Corner almost. But what was it like for him, trying to get up a mud track at Sheep Creek Hill? You have to go up the mountain to get to the plain where Riske Creek is.”
McKay used to be able to reminice about such things with lifelong friend Bill Stevens,. They met as young cowboys and becoming centenarians together.
“Him and I for some reason worked together and ran into each other all our lives. We met years ago on my dad’s ranch. We’ve been friends ever since,” McKay said.
Stevens’ daughter Rhonda Yager is another who has a strong appreciation for McKay, and even while living in the Lower Mainland made sure to stay in regular touch with this larger-than-life man she felt lucky to consider an uncle figure.
“He’s got a lot of information inside of him,” Yager said, “and after all this time, I’m still learning more about him. He has seen and done so much in his life, and it comes out of him in stories. You have to pay attention, with him, because everything he says might be something new you never knew about him.”
The spark to learn, the chemistry of curiosity, might also be another secret ingredient to Rich McKay’s longevity.
“It kinda boggles your head, when you’re an older guy, to think about what they’ve done,” he said, marvelling at communication technology and modern science’s discoveries, but he shows no signs of being intimidated by the contemporary state of the world.
He’ll have another party on Sept. 4, 2024 and everyone at his most recent birthday celebration fully expects he will blow out those 103 candles when the time comes.
If there is anyone else in the area who is nearly at 100, or older, The Observer would love to meet you. Please feel free to introduce yourself by email at editor@quesnelobserver.com.
READ MORE: Quesnel veteran Bill Stevens celebrates 100th birthday
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