Heinz Krause lovingly remembered
May 27, 2008 | | | |


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Heinz Krause
On December 25, 1935, Heinz Krause was born in Schivelbein, Germany. The first 20 years of life were a struggle for survival. Heinz, his mother Emma and brother Kurt endured starvation, invading armies and displacement to the west as refugees, with only a handwagon to carry their life’s possessions.

In 1945, they would settle temporarily in Penkun, East Germany, and were reunited with father Willi in 1948, who was only then released from a Russian prisoner-of-war camp.

It was there that Heinz began a four-year apprenticeship as a painter under Willi, a master painter. His “love of painting” was such that, although he completed the apprenticeship, he was very rarely seen with a paintbrush in hand again.

In 1952, after insulting the Communist Party, he and Willi decided that Heinz should leave East Germany immediately for the sector of Berlin controlled by the West, and he became a refugee once again. His parents followed shortly thereafter and they were placed in a refugee camp in Freiburg, West Germany.

Heinz always enjoyed the outdoors and spent much of his free time in Penkun on a farm and in Freiburg hiking through the Black Forest. So, in January, 1957, with very little money, he decided to follow his brother to Canada.

He traveled first by boat from Cuxhaven, Germany to Halifax, and then by train across Canada to BC. That was when he started to learn English. He eventually developed a very extensive vocabulary and could express himself better in English than German, but his accent always remained.

He joined Kurt in 100 Mile House where they lived in a small, cold shack and worked on the greenchain at the Taton Lumber Company. By 1959 they had saved up enough money to buy a couple of horses and the brothers headed into the mountains to search for gold.

After a few mishaps with the horses, heated arguments and empty stomachs, they decided to head in different directions.

Heinz had heard of a haying contract for Tex Hansen at Kleena Kleene and headed west over the Fraser River on horseback. When he finally arrived at Kleena Kleene, the haying was finished and Heinz had no work and no money.

He had no choice but to head back. As chance would have it, he was stung in the face by wasps and had to stop at Tatla Lake where, in exchange for his room and board, the Grahams gave him a job of milking cows and doing odd jobs.

He ended up staying the winter, responsible for feeding cattle. That winter he also shot squirrels and sold the pelts. Not only would he become an excellent marksman with a rifle, but he could bag grouse with a slingshot and pebbles.

Heinz’s desire to own land and become a rancher began to take shape, so he worked at various jobs in the ensuing years. In 1963, he bought a wild-hay meadow near Puntzi Lake and most years he supplemented the meager income from his growing ranch, to earn money to buy cattle, more land and machinery. He worked as a grader operator and a logger. He manually picked rocks on the Bella Coola Hill. He was a hunting guide, a trapper and a machinery operator on road construction crews, among other things. He learned quickly and was proud to work hard. He was also quite social and would drive or ride miles to attend dances and other community events. There was a time when it seems that he knew almost everyone between Anahim Lake and Riske Creek.

In 1965, Heinz met and married Helga, a Danish nurse who was working in Williams Lake. Helga was a great support to Heinz over the years as they transformed land at Puntzi Lake, once used as a small fishing resort, into a modest but smooth-running cattle ranch. They built their family home, converted a meadow into an irrigated hayfield and cleared land for grazing. In 1971, Helga finally got running water, although hot running water had to wait until 1975 when electricity came to Puntzi Lake. Heinz and other men from the community provided BC Hydro with the power poles.

When Heinz had a vision, he made it happen in his do-it-yourself way. Just as he taught himself English without a single course, he taught himself to weld, to work the land, to build structures, and not least of all, to fly. He had a life-long passion for flight and one winter in the early 1980’s, he bought a used Lazair Ultralight and with the frozen Puntzi Lake as a runway, one of his dreams came true.

In the summer he widened the ranch driveway with his bulldozer; downhill and out over the hayfield and lake, was the takeoff strip, and in over the hayfield and up the hill was the short landing strip. He wore out the heels of many rubber boots, his main form of brakes.

Heinz worked hard all his life. At 69 years he was still fighting forest fires with his bulldozer. At 70 he was showing young men how to build log snake fences. At 71 he was running the ranch and doing the haying in spite of growing weakness from illness.

Heinz enjoyed socializing and was always happy to give his opinion on topics ranging from haying to politics, from how to trap beaver to European history, and from hockey to classical music. Although he always preferred his meat and potatoes, and lots of it, he was game to try anything at least once. One didn’t have to agree with all his opinions to respect him. Stingy with praise and liberal with criticism, he had high standards when it came to work. As someone recently commented, “I can’t believe I’m 50 years old and worried what Heinz will think about how I’ve done this.”

In 2007, Heinz found himself getting progressively weaker and tiring more easily. Something was affecting his hands, speech and swallowing. He was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease). The nerve cells sending messages to his muscles were dying. There is no treatment, let alone cure. Heinz had a rapidly-progressing case that would impair his ability to breathe and swallow. An otherwise healthy, active man, he had never spent a night in hospital and hoped he never would. Heinz passed away at home on May 14, 2008, having spent the previous months with his family and friends. Heinz dealt with his illness in the same way that he had conducted himself throughout his life. He was very matter-of-fact and although he could not control the disease, he could control how he lived his final days. He did so with strength, courage and industriousness, not complaining nor seeking sympathy. He simply tried to ensure that his family and the ranch would be taken care of after he was gone. To the very end, he was active, giving instruction on how to run the ranch although he was very frustrated by his physical inability to “get in there and help”.

Heinz took great pleasure from the hours he was able to spend with his year-and-a-half-old grandsons, Erik Krause and Torsten Blodgett. One can only hope that they have inherited some of his intelligence, strength and work ethic. Heinz will be greatly missed by his wife Helga, his daughters Heide and Hanna and his son (Heinz) Tyson.

No memorial service, at Heinz’s request.

— December 25, 1935 -- May 14, 2008 —