“Canadians are settling in the Lake Chapala area in sufficient numbers for the migration to be almost called a ‘boom,’” wrote The Reporter’s Jack McDonald in July 1974.
McDonald credited a good deal of the influx to a Canadian television outfit that came down and “shot photographs of retirement homes and flower gardens, conducting taped interview with Canadians living here.”
One of those interviewed was Enid McDonald (no relation) a former champion golfer and Canada’s first female licensed aviator who was one of the main promoters of the construction of the Auditorio de la Ribera, built over six years in the early 1970s.
Jack McDonald noted that “proportionate to the populations of the two countries, the percentage of Canadian to Northamericans (sic) here is larger.”
At that time, there was a Men’s Canadian Club, which McDonald said “is a surprise in itself because Canadians are far from being compulsive joiners.” In 1973, Canadians first celebrated Dominion Day as a separate occasion, deciding not to join with Americans’ July 4 festivities.Enid McDonald, who was interviewed several times by The Reporter during her time at lakeside, told her namesake that Canadians “lead a more relaxed life” than Americans, noting that they are “pretty much out of convenient radio range of their native country,” and adding that “they know (Prime Minister) Trudeau isn’t going to do much and they are composed and indifferent about it all.”
Without offering any proof, Jack McDonald notes that “the Canadian stays here once he puts his roots down. Americans are more apt to be on the move once they are around for a while.”
Well-known Canadians living in the area in the early 70s included Captain W. Strange, OBE, formerly of the Royal Canadian Navy, who was also an author, playwright and radio scriptwriter; Dr. Peter Rees Davies, one of Canada’s foremost surgeons and Phillip Cox, a senior officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Over the years, Canadians have added their support to many of Lake Chapala area’s charitable works. In particular, two Canadian women were responsible for setting up the Lakeside School for the Deaf (now the Lakeside School for Special Needs Children). When Jackie Hartley realized the eight-year-old boy she was asking directions from was deaf and couldn’t go to school, she and a friend, Roma Jones, decided to teach him. Later, the boy’s six-year-old sister and four others joined the class, and the school which flourishes today was on its way.
In his 1974 article, McDonald also mentioned that due to the growth in the number of Canadians relocating to Guadalajara and Chapala, the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa was planning to install a “vice consul” in the city within six months.
It actually took Ottawa almost two years to appoint Canada’s first honorary consul in Guadalajara, 32-year-old local businessman Esteban Vigil Villaseñor, who had studied at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario between 1966 and 1971, earning a degree in electronic engineering. The experiment, unfortunately, did not last long, and the post was terminated, with the U.S. Consulate handling Canadian affairs until 1985, when Allan Rose, a retired lawyer from Toronto, took on the position, at first to work “two hours a day, two days a week.”
After a short time it became clear that the job was a far bigger proposition than he had imagined. “I found myself being drawn into matters of trade,” Rose told The Reporter in 1996. “Missions from all of Canada’s provinces visited and the amount on interest in Canada on the part of Mexicans increased tenfold.”
Ottawa provided Rose, who had moved with his wife Norrine to Ajijic, with a secretary, Ana Bara, and a driver, as well as an office at the Fiesta Americana Hotel. But the workload became too great and the post was professionalized in 1996, with Rose named as honorary consul in Ajijic.
Since then a succession of foreign service officers have served at the helm of the Canadian Consulate in Guadalajara. The tireless Bara, who this year completed her 21st year in the job, has worked under all of them: Jennifer Daubeny, John Grantham, Joanne Lemay, Kathy Aleong, Yvonne Chin and the current occupant of the post, Francis Uy.
Today, the Consulate is a dynamic operation with ten full-time staff members working out of plush offices on the top floor of Guadalajara’s World Trade Center. Long may they continue.