By Brian Lee
As kids, they held a predictable fascination for us. The Solberg sisters, Bergie and Minnie, were a rare spectacle that brightened any trip to Sechelt. (See story p. 14.) We knew them as the Cougar Lady and Mountain Minnie and my memory says they often stood outside the Bank of Montreal looking for a ride.
For those who didn’t experience Sechelt in the late seventies, it wasn’t the metropolitan centre it is now. But even then, in those rough frontier times, the Solbergs stood out like a pink shirt at the Roost.
I still see Bergie standing on the sidewalk clad in animal hide and workclothes, wearing her trademark leather hat and knife on her hip. Even a seven-year-old kid could tell she was the real deal.
At an age when fantasies of cowboys and traplines reigned as the ideal lifestyle pursuit, Bergie and Minnie were Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. And they were women.
As we’d drive by, some sibling would point and squeal,
"The Cougar Lady!"
I’m sure we weren’t the only ones who gawked but I wonder now what she might have thought of us, three slack-jawed heads rotating around the windows of the car as it passed.
She probably didn’t care. Raised by her father in a cabin up the inlet, she wasn’t inclined to worry about what others thought. Those kinds of sensitivities are taught and she attended a very different school than most.
The Solberg sisters were holdovers from a time when people didn’t Tweet about who Taylor Swift was dating or worry that their lives were somehow incomplete without a high definition TV.
I’d like to say our gaped awe sprang from respectful adulation but I’m inclined to think it was closer to the childish insensitivities we’re all guilty of at one time or another.We likely saw her as a freak or an oddball. Probably crazy too.
We have a hard time tolerating characters who stray outside the norm. One might expect the explosion of TV and internet would have broadened our tolerance of eccentrics but the opposite seems to be true. The information age seems to have enabled this pop culture pasteurization to take place on an even larger scale. We value style over substance more than ever and the reason is simple — style’s easier to sell.
I’m not advocating that clothing should come from the cougars we shoot but it doesn’t hurt anyone to come across a Bergie or Minnie once in awhile. Real characters like the Solberg sisters shed light on our own artifice and trivial fancies.
They’re like a signpost on a busy road telling us how far we’ve travelled from home.