Remembering Jim Cox
January 18, 1932 to June 1, 2024
On January 18, 2024, Jim Cox celebrated his 92nd birthday. He marked this accomplishment with sashimi, hugs and phone calls from his family and friends. Afterward, he sat quietly with his favourite photos of his late wife Doreen and shared the story of his day with her.
On June 1, 2024, Jim quietly slipped away to be with Doreen, their son Doug, and their great granddaughter MaKenna.
Jim will be remembered as a strong man who was most at home in a canoe on the water. He paddled the rivers and lakes of Northwestern Ontario and taught his family to love and live life outside.
The son of Judge John A. Cox and R.N. Ethel Cox (Wright), Jim carried his father’s keen intellect and commitment to fairness and his mother’s unerring command of her own path and clear vision of right and wrong.
Jim was the eldest of three brothers: Jim, Dan and Jack. Dryden was their playground and the Cox boys climbed trees, floated on log booms, jumped off rocks and created mischief wherever they could.
Jim had the heart of a fishing guide and the soul of a poet. Sitting with him on a lake, watching the water ripple and hearing the loons call, was as close as many of us have been to heaven.
Jim worked hard to earn a living and support his family, first as a fishing guide and then as a lumberjack, bush camp foreman, scaler, manager and wood purchaser for the Dryden Paper Company, Woodland Division in Dryden and Ear Falls. Jim launched the company’s woodlands operation in Ear Falls in 1969 and under his leadership the operation expanded to become a major source of timber and one of the town’s largest employers.
Like his brothers and his father, Jim was a storyteller. Every person that touched his life – every camp cook, machine operator, logger, American tourist, fishing partner, boss – lived on in his mind and their voices and their stories were still vivid to him 70 years later. He recalled each person’s name and used their own words to tell anyone who would listen that each person was colourful, unique and made a lasting mark on the world.
He was a tough guy with a blue-eyed Husky in the back of his truck and legendary biceps. He was a tender man who arranged wildflowers, sang sentimental songs and knew the poems of Robert Service by heart. He appreciated art and found beauty everywhere: in a bluebell growing wild against a backdrop of 100-year-old moss, in the sun glistening on the scales of a just-caught walleye, in the crackle of a warm fire on a cool night. He loved dew on morning grass and frost on tree branches. He braved heat and cold and blackflies to feel, see and hear the outdoor world and he brought all of us along.
Most of all, he loved Doreen. From the moment they met at Cedar Lake Lodge, Doreen was his guiding light, leading his way to a life that was bigger and better than anything he had imagined.
Together, with their sons Kevin and Doug, they built a log cabin from trees they cut and skinned on remote Bluffy Lake. They fished and planted gardens and had shore lunches. They introduced the magic of Northwestern Ontario to their grandsons, Reid and Blair Feltmate and welcomed their daughter Debbie and her family back to their wonderful life at ‘The Point” summer after summer.
To his children, he was larger-than-life. Whether navigating Bluffy Lake at night with Doug, or paddling remote northern lakes each summer with Kevin, there seemed to be nothing he couldn’t do.
Jim was just 24 when his daughter Debbie was born. When she was three, she helped him skin moose. When she was five, he let her hold the flashlight while he tracked a nuisance bear in the dark. At fifteen, they ate Italian salami and blue cheese in the cab of his truck on their weekly trips between Dryden and Ear Falls. At every moment he let her know she was fiercely protected and infinitely capable.
Jim was often the man in the buckskin jacket, the guy with the cut off shorts and rolled over black rubber boots. We see him crouched over a fire, pulling a walleye from the lake, setting a minnow on his son’s hook, rolling down the window to talk to someone from the cab of his half-ton, carrying a canoe over his head, or sleeping under it with only his legs visible. We see him listening to old timer stories in small Gold Pine cabins. We see him on his snow machine, assisting nurse Verla Driedger and RCMP constables on isolated landscapes in freezing conditions.
He saw himself as a man who was forever changed by his Ear Falls experience. From there, he could drive a logging road, hike, snowshoe or paddle into remote wilderness that still carried the imprint of its first people. From there he learned to lead a company and a community. As employer and town councillor, he had the opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of many of the people he met and cared about.
Jim had the great joy of witnessing the marriage vows of Blair and Adele on May 22, 2024, via a video link from hospital. That generous moment and the loving visits and calls to hospital from his children, grandsons and great grandsons, made his heart rest easy and gave him the peace he needed to stand down from his responsibilities on this earth and wrap his arms around us all from an even greater place of love and never-ending support.
Jim is sadly missed by his children and their spouses, Greg (Feltmate) and Camille (Cox), his grandchildren, Reid and Blair, and his cherished great grandchildren, Emerson and Theo Feltmate and their families. He will be missed by his many friends and family in Dryden, Ear Falls and all across Canada. He will be forever in our hearts.
Jim had an amazing 92 years of life. Now he gets to be by Doreen’s side again.
We hope you will all join us to remember Jim through an afternoon of storytelling, to be held in Dryden at a later date.
In Jim’s memory, memorial donations may be made to Ducks Unlimited Canada or the Dryden Foodbank.
