Friends remember Norman Wells man whose remains were found 29 years after accident
Friends of the Norman Wells man whose remains were found last August — 29 years after he disappeared — remember a remarkably successful young man with a big heart.
On Friday, RCMP confirmed that Raymond Persson's remains were found on an island in Great Bear Lake. He'd been missing since 1987, when he failed to return from a canoe trip with his friend Montgomery Kenneth Yates, whose body was recovered the following year.
Persson was originally from Red Deer, Alberta, and moved to Norman Wells in the 1970s.
In the booming oil town, he quickly made a name for himself as a welder and a businessman, says former business partner Warren Wright, the founder of North Wright Airways.
Still in his 20s, Persson started his own company, Canol Welding, which grew from zero to 60 employees in a matter of years.
"He was ambitious and he had quite a bit going on," says Wright.
An empty boat
Wright was actually on the scene when the search for Persson began that summer, 29 years ago.
"We owned a fishing lodge on Great Bear Lake, a trophy lodge, Stan Stephenson, myself and Ray Persson. He went to the outpost. We flew him out under North Wright Airways."
Persson was meant to be out there for a week.
Wright says when he went to pick Persson up, "the girls were there but Ray and the other fellow hadn't showed up the night before.
"I had to go back and make an excuse to take [the girls] back to the lodge and get the guides to come back to help look for him. When we saw the empty boat, we knew."
James Ulch, a friend of Persson who now owns Norman Well's Heritage Hotel, remembers being back in town when the news arrived.
"Somebody came back and said they found Ray's boat. They found the boat empty. Drifting. You know, you hope for the best and fear for the worst. As time went on, it was obvious that he wasn't going to come home to us," says Ulch.
'A made man'
"The guy had the world going for him. He was a made man. He could write the cheque for a million dollars and he was like, in his 20s," says Ulch, who also remembers Persson as a genuinely good person with a big heart.
"Over the years we became good friends. We did a little hunting together. One time when I needed some finances to help my company when it was struggling, Ray didn't even blink an eye, he just wrote the cheque and handed it to me."
Ulch also remembers Persson as a larger-than-life character.
"My construction yard was just on the other side of the road from his shop, and I used to giggle sometimes because I could hear him. He wasn't a big person but he roared like a lion. So I could hear him sometimes yelling out directions, getting his men scattering this way and that way to get things done.
"But when you sit down with him and the day is over with, he had a good laugh."
The Ray Persson Memorial Arena
After Persson went missing, the town named its hockey arena after him: the Ray Persson Memorial Arena. It was a fitting tribute says Wright: "He couldn't do enough for kids and hockey."
"I know Ray put a lot of his own money into that building as well as sending his men to do the structural welding for in-kind. So we owe that gentleman for a bit of the recreation in this community," adds Ulch.
"That's what makes it such a tragedy, being so young and so successful, and everything that he achieved so far. He had a long ways to go."
A sense of closure
For Ulch, news that Persson's remains had been found was simply confirmation of what everyone had known for years: that Persson drowned on the fishing trip.
"When I heard that they discovered Ray, I just didn't know what to think. Is that incredible or just darn scary?"
Wright says for himself, there is some sense of closure. Although he says he doesn't know whether Persson's family would feel the same way.
Persson had a young son who was around six when Persson died. Neither Wright nor Ulch had heard from him since the recent news broke. But Wright did get to meet him several years ago.
"I had a few little things of Ray's: his log book as a pilot, a flashlight he had from search and rescue. I gave that back to his son."
It's up to Persson's family to decide what to do with his remains now, but Wright wonders if the best thing might be to put him back near to where he was found.
"Ray loved the fishing and he loved Great Bear Lake. To be returned there would be appropriate."
