Skip to content

Our Town

If you've been around Smithers long enough, you probably bought shoes from him ("a good job for a leg man," he quips).

Fast forward a few years and you may have procured radio advertising from him.

There was even a brief interlude you might have purchased a car from him. 

If you're volunteer-minded, you've likely served with him on one or more than a dozen community organizations and events he has been involved in over the decades. 

But for the past few years, if you are a regular reader of this newspaper, you know him as the publisher of The Interior News.

As of today (Oct. 31), after 17-and-a-half years as a salesperson, then sales manager, and finally, publisher of this newspaper, Grant Harris has officially retired.

EARLY LIFE

Grant grew up in Terrace in the 1960s and '70s in a home on Kalum Street. "I can remember when Kalum Street was neither paved nor straight," he recalled.

His family has deep ties to the city's history as George Little — often referred to as "the founder of Terrace" — was a great uncle.

Grant's father AJ (Arthur John) was a Second World War veteran who purchased half a city block where he and Grant's mother Mary Gertrude grew a family of four boys and one girl. The eldest, Tom Harris, is a well-known resident of Terrace who was a captain in the Salvation Army and employee of the provincial government..

The rest of the siblings have scattered across the province and country with brothers John and Ken on Vancouver Island and in Ontario respectively, and sister Michelle in Vancouver.

AJ worked as a psychiatric aid at Skeenaview, a Second World War military hospital converted to a psychiatric facility for men. Mary had various jobs through the years including working as an Avon lady and later was a constant figure at the Terrace Public Library.

Grant recalls that as the family grew, the property shrunk.

"Every time they wanted to add on to the house because they were having more kids, they would sell a piece of the property," he said. "And then it turned out that the school district bought a chunk of it. All my elementary school years, I just had to jump the fence and I was in the schoolyard."

At the time the school was known as Clarence Michael Elementary School. It is now the Suwilaawks Community School. Grant moved from there to Skeena Junior High School until Grade 10 and then to Caledonia High School where he met Elizabeth. They have now been married for 44 years.

PROFESSIONAL LIFE

When they graduated, Grant got his first taste of the media business as a switcher — the person who switches between cameras and to taped segments during live broadcasts — for CFTK Television. That was originally intended to be just a stepping stone to bigger and more exciting things.

"My ambition out of high school was I wanted to be a news cameraman in areas of the world where there was conflict going on," he said. 

But marriage and the desire to have a family set him on a different course.

Enter Copp the Shoe Man. For nearly a century, Copp the Shoe Man was a chain of retail footwear stores with branches all over the province, including Terrace and Smithers.

Grant started as a clerk at the Terrace store. Within seven months, the manager position at the store in the Smithers Shopping Centre opened up and the company wanted Grant there.

He and Elizabeth decided the extra money was worth the move and they were on their way east on Highway 16.

During his seven years with Copp, Grant and Elizabeth started welcoming their own little ones, first Katrina, then Andrew. When they found out they were going to have twins, Grant asked for a transfer to a bigger and more lucrative store to help support their growing family, but the company refused. 

Fortuitously, Barrie Carter of Carter's Jewellers, also in the mall, passed along Grant's situation to Al Collison, the manager of BVLD Radio (now The Moose).

After consulting Elizabeth again, they decided it was a good move.

And it was. Grant loved advertising sales and he loved the crew at the radio station for 18 years.

"They were a fun-loving group of people... a young, thinking group of people and Al was a good boss; he was kind."

However, in 2005, BVLD changed hands and re-branded as "The Peak."

"Their management style really rubbed my fur the wrong way, and this is a good way to put it, so I started looking around for another job," Grant recalled.

He found an opportunity at Glacier Toyota and, uncharacteristically, jumped on it.

"So, without consulting my primary caregiver, doctor, lawyer and significant other, I made the move to car sales," he said.

He said Elizabeth was surprised, but understanding.

"I couldn't have survived and flourished as I have without Elizabeth at my side," he said. "She had my back all the time."

He didn't do badly at car sales, selling 66 units in his first year, but he was bored.

"What I hadn't anticipated was the waiting," he said. "In marketing sales, I'm going to my clients on a constant basis, whereas car sales, by and large, you're waiting on the lot...  for some likely prospect and it was the waiting that was really the killer."

He wanted back in the advertising game.

"It was serendipitous that Vic Swan, the [Interior News] publisher of the time was looking for a sales rep," Grant recalled.

During his time at The Interior News, Grant has seen the complete transformation of the newspaper business, particularly in technology. When he started in 2007, there were still elements of production that were manual, not the instant digital world of today.

"Gone are the days when Vic Swan would jump in the car with a new set of pasted-up pages, racing to get ahead of the bus so he could replace a mistake, or somebody else bought an ad, racing the bus to Burns Lake, catching it at Burns Lake, replacing the pages, and on it went to Williams Lake for printing," Grant recalled.

He says he will miss the staff and the excitement of every day being different, but most of all, his clients.

"What became my jam, as far as sales, was helping my clients succeed," he said. "They have a problem, and it might be customer awareness, or it might be inventory, it might be any number of aspects of their business, but I was there to help them solve whatever their problems were."

REAL LIFE

While Grant has had a largely satisfying career serving his clients, he views work as a means to an end. First and foremost that end is a comfortable and robust family life, and secondarily, volunteering. He found out, the two go hand-in-hand.

While he was at Copp the Shoe Man and overlapping with his time at BVLD, he and Elizabeth became foster parents.

"We just felt that we, you know, we've got four kids, what would be one or two more, once in a while, that needed help, that needed a safe, loving, caring environment," he explained.

By the time their children were getting to secondary school age, however, they felt like it was too much to continue. It remains a very rewarding period, though.

Over the years, we've, met and heard from some, now adults... and they've got fond memories of our home."

He also believes it was good for their children.

"I think it [helped them], because all of our kids are of varying political views and lifestyles, but they are all compassionate people," he said. "So, I don't know what more you could ask."

Grant has also served many of the Bulkley Valley's community organizations and events including Scouts; the BC Winter Games, Smithers Community Services Association, Multi-Cultural Society, Bulkley Valley Community Foundation; Smithers Citizens on Patrol, the Fall Fair Parade, 4-H project judging and the Smithers Merchants Association, among others.

Nearest to his heart though, is his long-standing involvement with the Relay for Life and Daffodil Dash. So dear to his heart, in fact, he gets kind of choked up talking about it.

He says that is because cancer is something that has and continues to touch virtually everybody in the community.

"I felt like we were doing something very concrete to make people directly affected by, and/or, suffering from cancer, which so many of us get, better," he said.

"Being able to do something concrete and meaningful, both by raising funds for research and treatment, as well as, honouring those that have succumbed to the disease and were still currently dealing with working to combat the symptoms of it... those were some amazing, amazing events... that brought our community together in a way that practically nothing else has." 

RETIREMENT LIFE

While retirement is, by definition, an ending, it is also a beginning. 

Grant and Elizabeth have some plans to do a bit of travelling, but beyond that, he hasn't ruled out working, maybe even full-time, if the opportunity is right.

"I certainly need something besides Days of Our Lives and a box of bonbons to make my day," he said. "So, I'll be looking for a job where I can exercise some of my creative side and yet still have less responsibility to be able to, you know, hang it up at five o'clock and pick it up again at nine o'clock."

Editor's note: Thanks for everything, Grant. We, at The Interior News and throughout Black Press North, will miss you. Congratulations on your retirement and all the best in your future endeavours. May you enjoy your retirement for decades to come.



Thom Barker

About the Author: Thom Barker

After graduating with a geology degree from Carleton University and taking a detour through the high tech business, Thom started his journalism career as a fact-checker for a magazine in Ottawa in 2002.
Read more