This award is presented to a graduating student from the Renewable Resource Program pursuing a teaching degree.
Placing a rock at a high point in the Himalayas in memory of his daughter did not ease Vince Nicola’s broken heart over the death of his daughter. Lighting candles to her memory in Hindu and Buddhist temples across Asia did not bring the relief he sought.
“I have come to the conclusion that I am just not going to get over her death,” he says. “But I do need to make sure she is remembered. I don’t want her to be forgotten.”
There is comfort in the naming of a lake and a creek after his daughter, in the cairn that bears her name on a mountain, and in the plaque next to a tree planted in her name at Lakeside Park in Nelson.
But after traveling as far around the world as he thought he needed to go, Vince found himself back in Nelson this fall to see his daughter’s friends, to visit her favorite spots, and to take one more step to ensure that Lise Nicola will be remembered. Vince has established a bursary in her honor at Selkirk College.
“At this point, I don’t know if I am doing this for myself or for her,” Vince says. “She’s gone. Someday, I’m going to be gone. And the more I think about it, the more important it becomes to create something that will perpetuate her memory and the things she valued.”
Lise died in the January, 1998 avalanche that claimed five other lives in the Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park. At 29, Lise had chosen to live in Nelson to pursue her love of any sport that involved being outside. For the six years she lived in Nelson, she was a big part of the backcountry community.
“The joke in Nelson was there wasn’t anyone she hadn’t done some type of outdoor activity with,” says Vince. “Mountain biking, white water kayaking, back country skiing, rock climbing. She had a lot of skills and a real appreciation of the outdoors.”
Vince remembers his daughter as being thoughtful, strong, and quiet. His memories center most on her connection with the outdoors: discovering the back country at the age of 15; a river-kayaking trip in Costa Rica; the happiest day of her life, when she became a Park Ranger; the day in May, 1997 when she climbed Canada’s highest peak, Mount Logan, in the Yukon territories; and the fact that her nickname, ‘Wildflower’, defined her perfectly.
At the time of her death, Lise was working summers as a Park Ranger, and spending the rest of the year enrolled in the Teacher Education program at Selkirk College.
“I think she would have been a heck of a teacher,” says Vince. “Ideally, this bursary will be given to someone going into education, and who will teach recreation and outdoor skills.” This legacy belongs to Lise, but another family connection makes this scholarship even more heart-felt for Vince. In 1989 his brother died of an aneurysm at the age of 41, leaving an inheritance for five children in his extended family.
“The strange thing was, there were only four children in the family – my two and my sister’s two,” says Vince. “So there was always this left-over inheritance, this money left for that fifth child who didn’t exist.”
With Lise’s death, Vince’s family has agreed that putting that inheritance into a bursary is exactly what both Lise and her uncle would have wanted. It means Vince Nicola and his family will be helping a student each year, keeping Lise Nicola’s passion for the outdoors aflame, and completing a deeply personal circle of giving.