Green Hair, Napkins, and a Kayak By Barry Davis

Ian Burvill (far left) explores the fun and friendship mandates of Masters Swimming Canada

When we here in British Columbia think of a club at the B.C. provincial or Canadian championship banquets that wears napkins on their heads, dye their hair green and generally behave in "sophisticated childlike ways" (which always makes for entertaining evenings considering all the speeches) the Nanaimo Ebbtides Masters Swim Club comes to mind.

One of the organizers of this cool addition to banquets over the years is Ian Burvill who has been with the Ebbtides for 25 years.

Ian Burvill was born in Scotland in 1946 and he does not wear a Speedo under that kilt, he says. He learned how to knit in grade 3 in Scotland and attained the coveted rank of tea cozy level.

Burvill learned how to swim at the age of 15 and joined his high school swim team where he mastered butterfly – which he has regretted ever since. The senior athletic champion in elementary school in London, Ontario, he eventually moved west to Calgary to finish high school. He started his summer lifeguarding and partying career while trying to figure out what to do with his life. He enrolled in S.A.I.T. and took electronics. He transferred to B.C.I.T. and took civil and structural engineering and partied on.

At this point in his life, he graduated to “ski bum” in Rossland, B.C. where he met Iona Belous, his wife of 32 years. He worked as a heavy equipment operator in the old open pit mine on the back side of Red Mountain. He decided to become an electrician at the age of 30. In 1980 he moved to Vancouver Island. Burvill worked at Malaspina College as an electrician/maintenance foreman for five years, and joined the Ebbtides where he was pleased to see that partying was a major tradition in the club.

About this time, he also took up whitewater kayaking and in 1984, the same year his son Ryan was born, went over the Englishman River Falls to demonstrate to some Alberta paddlers that it was survivable. That summer he also paddled the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Burvill says that if anyone is ever at Long Beach, look for the old guy in a beat up red/yellow kayak doing the surfing thing and say hi.

In 1987, Burvill started an electrical contracting company with two friends. Securco Services Inc. currently installs burglar alarm systems as well as CCTV and access control. In 1995 and 1996 Profit Magazine named Securo one of Canada's top 100 companies.

While continuing to swim, Burvill took up ocean kayaking. He tries to do an expedition every year with his buddies. Their longest trip to date was a circumnavigation of Vancouver Island in 2003. It took 28 days and covered 1,300 kilometres. The next planned trip is to paddle from Prince Rupert to Bella Bella as they have already done Bella Bella to Port Hardy.

While swimming is Burvill’s main form of exercise and stress relief, during the winter he can also be found on Mt. Washington exploring out of bounds areas.

One year he found himself sliding downhill underneath an avalanche where he discovered snowboards make great toboggans when your leg is broken and the road is over two hours away. Swimming seemed to speed up the healing as he was able to hike the Great Wall of China six weeks later.

On the Coppermine River.

This past summer, Burvill and a friend paddled the Coppermine River in the Arctic from its source to the Arctic Ocean (about 500 kilometres) and the hamlet of Kugluktuk. The river trip took 17 days; then they spent a week paddling off shore, exploring some of the islands in the Coronation Gulf. The highlight was listening to the deep rumble of a bull muskox telling them to keep their distance (20 feet) while the rest of the herd disappeared into the stunted trees, Burvill says.

Over his 25 seasons with the Ebbtides, Burvill has spent many workouts hiding at the back of the fast lane, but eventually he became involved with the executive doing his bit as president. He has participated in many national championships and competed at the 2005 World Masters Games in Edmonton.

The best times with the Ebbtides are the road trips, he says. The green hair made its debut at the provincials in Salmon Arm and continued onto Kelowna where he had the strenuous job of chauffeuring six women for the weekend. He suggests that the club took the Masters’ motto "swimming for life" to a new dimension.

In 2006 Burvill was named runner-up for the Masters Athlete of the Year in Nanaimo.

So, if you would like to know more about kayaking on any type of water, partake in advanced knitting, look for Burvill at the next meet. He will be the one in green hair surrounded by women with a napkin on his head. Stay with him and the party will begin and last into the wee hours.

Ian Burvill (right) inspects the Coppermine River during his trip in the summer of 2006.