Fougberg, Thord ( - 1995)

Thord "Slim" B. M. Fougberg was a logger, trapper, prospector, farmer, school board trustee, chairman for the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, and founder of Coast Mountain Outdoor School in Pemberton. He grew up in Piteå, Sweden and moved to British Columbia as a twenty-year-old. After working along the coast for a time, he came to Pemberton in 1929 to work in a mill there. During that year, he met his wife-to-be, Margaret Collins, who was a teacher at Pemberton Middle School. After the mill Slim was working at went bankrupt, he became a trapper and prospector. Slim and Margaret married on Bowen Island in 1939, then he enlisted in the army. Upon his return, he and Margaret returned to Pemberton where they farmed. Later he served on the local school board for District 48. In the 1970s, with some funding from the provincial government, he purchased a lot to construct an outdoor school, which is now the Coast Mountain Outdoor School. The couple was instrumental in co-founding the Pemberton & District Museum and Archives in 1982. The museum opened in what is now known as Fougberg Park in Pemberton. In 1986, they were the recipients of an Award of Merit from the BC Museums Association. The couple moved back to Bowen Island in 1990.