Michel ‘Mike’ Sauze, 80, of Pender Island, BC, died on Wednesday March 19, 2014.
Mike was born August 20, 1933, in Aix-en-Provence, France. His father, Rene Sauze, was employed by a shipping company and his work took the family to various port cities in Africa and Southeast Asia. As a result, Mike spent his early boyhood years in equatorial climates in Madagascar, New Caledonia and Singapore. In 1941, the family was living in Singapore when the Japanese invaded. Mike, along with his mother and siblings, were relocated shortly before the invasion to India and remained there for the duration of the war. Mike’s father was separated from the family and was killed in Indochina in 1945. Mike and the family moved to France at the end of the war in 1945. He spent his adolescence in post-war Paris where he earned a diploma in Forest Technology from ‘L’Ecole des Bois’ in Paris. Upon graduation in the early 1950s, his spirit of adventure took him to Scandinavia, England and Ireland, but times were hard and work opportunities were limited to manual labor. Mike was not afraid of risk and decided a move to Canada might be a good idea. He left Europe in the mid-1950s, but not before meeting Francoise Vidal at a soiree des Grandes Ecoles de Paris.
In Canada, Mike enthusiastically joined a wave of European immigrants and readily found employment in Canada’s extensive forests. He spent a wonderful summer in the lake country in Northern Ontario and a miserable wet winter working at the pulp mill in Powell River. He embraced Canada’s beauty and was continually amazed by its vastness and scale. After several years in Canada, he went back to France where he and Francoise were married in 1959 and their daughter, Anne was born. They spent one year together in Vancouver while Mike completed his Forestry degree at the UBC.
When Mike graduated in 1962, they moved to Northern BC and eventually to Northern Alberta where their two sons, Marc and Eric, were born. In Alberta, Mike initially worked for the Alberta Forest Service but he quickly discovered his direct nature and spirit of adventure were not ideally suited for civil service. He started a forestry consulting company named Sauze Forestry and spent the 1960s cruising timber in Alberta’s forests. Mike was completely at home in 40 degree below zero weather in the middle of nowhere wearing his cruiser’s vest and smoking a pipe. Identifying a need for specialized instruments to help Canadian Foresters be more effective and efficient, Mike started a forest equipment company in the early 1970s, called Canadian Forestry Equipment Ltd. During his early years in Scandinavia, he’d become familiar with advances in forestry equipment, so Mike decided to import this equipment to Canada, initially working out of his basement in Edmonton. Through his tireless efforts the company grew nationwide by the 1990s with offices from Vancouver to Halifax. He retired at the end of the 1990s and focused his passion on sailing and traveling.
Mike wasn’t a natural sailor but he was fearless and determined to visit as much of Canada’s West Coast as he could in his 38 foot sailboat, Elysian. From his home on Pender Island, he took the Elysian as far North as Alaska, along the outer coast of Vancouver Island, and through the straits and islands in between. He was constantly looking for friends and family willing to crew on another adventure. Mike’s curiosity and restless spirit also took him all over the world, as he joined his lifelong friend, Martin Vennesland on his sailing adventures with Martin’s wife, Anne Brevig. Mike also explored the Rocky Mountains on horseback with Peter Denny and the deserts of the US southwest in his Chrysler convertible.
French cooking was another passion Mike pursued in his retirement and he would use every utensil and pan in the kitchen creating ‘Gigot a la Gasgonade Provencale’ ‘Lapin Chasseur’, ‘Daube’ or ‘Paella’, consulting with Francoise now and then as he tried new recipes.
Mike was an honest, forthright man – always interested and interesting. He lived life to the fullest and left an impression wherever he went. Carrying on the Sauze legacy are his wife, Francoise; his children: Anne (Denis), Marc (Helen), Eric (Kathy); his grandchildren: Melanie, Celine, Luc, Jocelyn,
Claire, Natalie, Fiona.