He may have been a four-term mayor, political fiend (and Beachcombers movie extra), but playing cards with his friends, Barry Janyk didn’t have a great poker face.
“He started beaming, he couldn't help himself,” recalled longtime friend Michael Maser, who was among Janyk’s crew of “poker night” guys for nearly 25 years. “He was Barry. He had this indomitable spirit.”
It’s that “pie-eating grin,” irreverent humour and long political legacy friends are remembering as Janyk, who served four consecutive terms as Town of Gibsons mayor from 1999 to 2011, died at home last week. He was 71.
“I knew him as a friend, and I greatly admired him as a skillful, thoughtful, enthusiastic politician,” recalled Maser. “He did so much for the town. He brought it forward into a new era, really, and he did it with transparency and integrity and almost every park that people enjoy in Gibsons, he either initiated or helped improve.”
One for small towns, Janyk was born in Duncan and raised in the logging community of Honeymoon Bay on Cowichan Lake on Vancouver Island.
While one may need a thick skin for small-town politics, Janyk had weathered much more –– he’d been a helicopter and small plane pilot in B.C. and Yukon in the ‘70s and ‘80s and made numerous ascents into the mountains. “He did incredible hiking when he was in the ‘70s. And he loved the wilderness and he was skilled,” said Maser.
As a commercial helicopter pilot, Janyk developed and managed Vancouver Harbour’s first heliport. He also worked in the forest industry as a log scaler both before and after being a pilot. (A log scaler measures cut wood and timber for volume and quality.)
Janyk’s years as a scaler ended when the provincial government initiated the Tetrahedron Local Resource Use Plan (LRUP) in 1990 in response to logging opposition.
“I thought that what Barry wanted to do in life really came into focus when he managed to get a seat on the LRUP,” said Dan Bouman, who sat on the committee with Janyk.
The process went on for five years and led to the creation of Tetrahedron Provincial Park, protecting the Chapman and Gray Creek watersheds. “I think out of that experience, a lot of people realized that you could work with the government, and government belongs to the people,” said Bouman.
“It was as an empowering experience for him as it was for the rest of us,” said Bouman. “He’s been close in the circle of environmentalists that actually gets things done for a long time.”
Janyk was first elected to Gibsons council in 1996 and then was elected mayor in 1999.
Bouman was aware that Janyk knew a lot of people but it hit home for him the Sunday after Janyk won his first mayoral victory.
“I called up Barry, I said, ‘Congratulations, let's go to the Waterfront [Restaurant] for breakfast.’” They got a parking spot a couple of blocks away and headed for the restaurant on Marine Drive. “People were stopping him at every step and shaking his hand and slapping him on the back, because nobody believed he could possibly get elected, because nobody really knew how many people he knew –– and he knew a lot of people.”
When they finally got to the restaurant and walked in, “the whole place stood up and clapped,” said Bouman. “It was such an expression of people's affection for him and the work that had affected them.”
“He had a vision for what a community is and what makes the community a great place to live –– that set him apart, I think, from most mayors, most municipal elected officials,” reflected Michael McLaughlin, who came to the Coast as an economic development coordinator in 2009, and continued a friendship with Janyk afterward, meeting for lunch monthly for over a decade. “A great imagination…it was kind of difficult to keep up with him. He was just always so quick.”
Janyk was notably funny. McLaughlin’s favourite Janyk story was at an event at Sunnycrest Mall, shortly after McLaughlin arrived in town. “There’s a lectern with a microphone and [Barry] walks over,” recounted McLaughlin. “And he caresses the microphone and says, ‘I've never met a microphone I didn’t like!’”
Bruce Milne was elected mayor of Sechelt the same year Janyk was first elected to council, in 1996. The day after their successful election, Janyk sent Milne an email, referencing Milne’s last campaign ad, which quoted Bruce Springsteen. “Can’t light a fire without a spark.”
“And [he] sort of held us all to account for the next three years, to make sure we really did make some change,” said Milne.
Along with his humour, Janyk’s environmentalism was a pillar not only of his life, but his time in office: it was during his time as mayor that Gibsons was one of the first communities in B.C. to consider implications of sea level rise and was a pioneer in installing water meters, noted a statement from his family, and he started the work of aquifer mapping on the lower coast.
Following the 1999 election, both Milne and Janyk sat on the Sunshine Coast Regional District Board. (Janyk would represent Gibsons on the board for more than a decade and chaired the regional hospital district board during Sechelt Hospital’s $44 million expansion.)
“He could take up a lot of space in a room,” said Milne. “Elected officials who weren't as confident sometimes found a lack of space left over for less confident people to be difficult for them, but it was never a problem when he was actually advocating for Gibsons or the Sunshine Coast. He was a really fierce advocate for his town. I don't know many mayors that care so visibly about the town.”
Janyk was also known provincially –– he served as chair of the Island Coastal Economic Trust, chair of the Association of Vancouver Island Communities and vice-chair of Union of BC Municipalities.
At the Union of BC Municipalities and similar conventions, conversations were brief with Janyk. “Because it'd be a lot of people around, and everybody wants to talk to Barry,” said Bouman.
“He believed politics and community building should be fun,” said Janyk’s family in a statement.
Whether he was “Jack Sparrow” or “Relic” on the annual Town of Gibsons Sea Cavalcade festival float, Janyk “would just get right in there,” recalled Wendy Gilbertson who was parks manager, among other roles, while Janyk was in office. “I could say to Barry to show up, and he'd be game.”
When Gibsons won best drinking water in the world in a water-tasting contest in 2005 (lack of taste was the key), the parks crew built a float with a watering can stationed above Janyk’s head.
Another year, Gilbertson surprised Janyk with an old graduation dress. “I said, ‘Oh, you're Miss Sea Cavalcade this year,’” said Gilbertson. “We had him in a gown and tiara and wig, and he was way up on this big flowered float. Waving and blowing kisses.”
In 2009, Gilbertson and Janyk were among those who travelled to the Czech Republic to compete for “most livable community in the world,” of under 20,000 –– and to their delight, they won. (Bob Hoy of IGA stepped up to sponsor the trip.)
“His heart was really into the community. He bent over backwards for a lot of people, making sure things were OK,” said Gilbertson.
Suzanne Senger met Janyk when she wandered into town hall. She knew nothing of government process (or the advocacy she later became known for on the Coast), she wanted to start a backpacker’s hostel, was looking at a couple of properties and wanted some guidance. Janyk invited her to present at a meeting, directed her to read the official community plan (OCP) and introduced her to the director of planning. “That was kind of the whole experience of Barry, right? Everybody was invited to town hall.”
“His invitation was like, ‘Come on, we want to hear your voice. We want to hear what you think. He didn't know me, and I was just a regular citizen who had thoughts and ideas.
"I didn't know that’s not how it always goes,” said Senger. “Because that was my experience, I expected to be respected as a public voice. I expected to be allowed to say what I thought, or criticize or celebrate in that space. It was a really cool expectation to create.”
Friends also remember the OCP was important in his political life. “He was very clear in his role as mayor that he was the advocate of the community vision articulated in the official community plan, by the public for the public,” said Senger.
Following his mayoral defeat in 2011, Janyk continued to work in the spheres of environment and rural communities. He served as executive director of several non-profits, including the Federation of Mountain Clubs of BC and BC Rural Centre.
He was an avid birder, organizing and leading Christmas Bird Counts and breeding bird surveys. He always had bird feeders around his house.
“He was always watching the birds in flight and birds at the feeder and birds in the harbour,” said Bouman. “I felt I could always count on him to be correct when he made his identifications, he's pretty serious about it.”
Barry Janyk was exuberant, Bruce Milne concluded. He remembered working with a sociologist at UBC, doing work for Coastal Community Network and a survey of smaller towns, when the sociologist told Milne, “You know, Bruce, Barry is everything and exactly what a small-town mayor should be. He's outgoing, he's exuberant. He puts his town first. He's committed, and he likes everybody, and he likes politics,” recalled Milne. “But I can tell you, that’s not always the case.”
In his personal life, he raised three kids in Gibsons –– Kohlby, Roen and Garnet.
“He loved Gibsons passionately and did his best to serve the community. He thoroughly loved his time as mayor and the community loved him back,” said his wife Jane, whom he married in 2005. “He would frequently get comments from people when he was out and about around town, even years after he was in public office, from people who wanted to know what he thought about this or what he thought about that, sort of share their fond memories of the time when he was leading the town.”
Janyk was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a rare brain cancer, in 2023 and chose to keep it private, said his family, “facing his illness with trademark positivity, optimism and hope.”
“He was a pretty special person. He liked to make other people feel good. He liked to make them laugh,” said Jane. “And I miss him.”
