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OUR HOMETOWN: Toronto transplant fell in love with Williams Lake

Denise Deschene did not plan to stay in the Cariboo, but now she’s all-in
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Denise Deschene was helping with the Bike Recycling program run by the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society. She and Mary Forbes were helping engage Cataline Elementary School students to strip bikes of parts so they could be reused or recycled. (Ruth Lloyd photo - Williams Lake Tribune)

Sixty-six-years old, an avid cyclist and volunteer, you may hear Denise Deschene described as a “firecracker.”

She has a sharp wit and a depth of life experience which gives her a serious grounding in the human condition.

Understandably, the Toronto transplant had no idea she would end up in small town B.C.

Deschene’s father worked as a postman and moonlighted at a movie theatre, her mother worked part-time at Eaton’s department store — at least until her three children were at home alone while the building across the road burned down before their eyes.

After finishing school, Deschene returned home to Toronto from travelling abroad. She got a job for an all-female bicycle courier company -it was the 70s, and there weren’t a lot of bicycle couriers in general, but the two owners had gotten some grant funding through a program to encourage women to work in nontraditional careers. She rode everywhere.

“We were better equipped to get through the tangled traffic in downtown,” explained Deschene.

The company didn’t last long, but she was only saving enough money to go travel again, and planned to head to B.C. on her way to see the Yukon.

“Thirty-one years later and I’m still here,” Deschene cracked dryly.

She initially moved to Vancouver, where she was close to her grandmother who lived on Salt Spring Island. She would go regularly to visit her grandmother and was working with street youth in Vancouver’s Boys Town, what was the heart of the male sex trade at the time.

The young men she worked with were from all over, recalled Deschene and she found it a real lesson in B.C. geography. But it was tough work, especially as there was an overdose crisis happening in the 90s.

But then she fell in love with a man from the Cariboo, and moved up to try it out, living rurally on the West Fraser Road. She got a job as a youth alcohol and drug prevention worker and it felt like a relief at least initially and her goal was to prevent people from ending up on Vancouver streets.

She said she came up with low expectations, but those expectations were far exceeded.

“I realized that I really loved this place,” explained Deschene. “I’d never felt so connected to a community.”

She enjoys meeting people from all different walks of life in Williams Lake.

“And it was very welcoming,” said Deschene of her adopted hometown.

“I just found that whatever you were interested in you could find other people who were doing the same thing, and become a part of that.”

One of her interests ended up being mountain biking, something she took up thanks to Troy Forcier, and she was leading rides with BGC Williams Lake, about 20 years ago. She was amazed by the cross-section of the community she met and the trails.

“I discovered this whole trail network which was stunning to me.”

She retired from Interior Health in early 2020, and had plans to travel upon retirement, but when the pandemic hit, those plans shifted.

Instead she was able to go back to Ontario to visit her mom before she passed away, and she began volunteering to fill her time.

“I wanted to give back to the community in a way that was very concrete.”

Deschene can often be found playing music for seniors, walking dogs for the SPCA, working at the food bank, volunteering on councillor candidate Michael Moses’ campaign, working with the anti-racism group CCCARE or heading up the new Active Transportation Williams Lake group.

She said she spent her urban life getting around by public transit and bicycle but she didn’t have the same opportunity to use her bike for transport when she first moved to the Cariboo, as she lived so far out of town and needed a vehicle for work. However, recently, with increasing gas prices and now living only three kilometres from downtown, she realized she had no reason not to get back on the bike and return to her roots.

“It’s just so freeing.”

She loves the opportunity to stop, chit chat, and be outdoors.

“I started to loathe getting in the car. So it struck me this was something I wanted to share and encourage other people to do.”

Read more: OUR HOMETOWN: From an orphan to a physiotherapist in Williams Lake

Read more: OUR HOMETOWN: Family, rodeo and work keeps Virgil Poffenroth’s life full



ruth.lloyd@wltribune.com

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Ruth Lloyd

About the Author: Ruth Lloyd

After moving back to Williams Lake, where I was born and graduated from school, I joined the amazing team at the Williams Lake Tribune in 2021.
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