Mountain Life
  • Daily Content
    • Trips & Expeditions
    • Climbing
    • Mountain Biking
    • Mountain Lifer
    • Multiplicity
    • On The Trail
    • Paddling
    • Photography
    • Skiing
    • Snowboarding
    • Stay & Play
    • Surfing
    • The Great Outdoors
    • The ML Interview
    • Travel
  • GEAR
  • VIDEOS
  • STORE
  • Magazines
    • ML Coast Mountains
    • ML Rocky Mountains
    • Vie En Montagne
    • ML Blue Mountains
    • ML Annual
    • ML Subscriptions
  • ABOUT
    • What is ML?
    • Our Team
    • Newsletter
    • Adventure Grant
    • Distribution
  • Podcast
  • Contests
  • CONTACT
    • ML Agency
    • Advertising
    • Contribute
Subscription Form

Get notified of the best News

Social Links
Instagram 22K Followers
Facebook 25K Likes
Twitter 5K Followers
Pinterest 1K Followers
Vimeo 34 Followers
LinkedIn 0
22K Followers
25K Likes
5K Followers
1K Followers
Mountain Life
Mountain Life
  • Daily Content
    • Trips & Expeditions
    • Climbing
    • Mountain Biking
    • Mountain Lifer
    • Multiplicity
    • On The Trail
    • Paddling
    • Photography
    • Skiing
    • Snowboarding
    • Stay & Play
    • Surfing
    • The Great Outdoors
    • The ML Interview
    • Travel
  • GEAR
  • VIDEOS
  • STORE
  • Magazines
    • ML Coast Mountains
    • ML Rocky Mountains
    • Vie En Montagne
    • ML Blue Mountains
    • ML Annual
    • ML Subscriptions
  • ABOUT
    • What is ML?
    • Our Team
    • Newsletter
    • Adventure Grant
    • Distribution
  • Podcast
  • Contests
  • CONTACT
    • ML Agency
    • Advertising
    • Contribute
  • Mountain Lifer

Requiem for a Relic

  • May 16, 2022
  • Mountain Life Media
Total
24
Shares
24
0
0
0
0
0
Total
24
Shares
Share 24
Tweet 0
Pin it 0
Share 0
Share 0
Share 0

50 years after The Beachcombers first hit Canadian TV screens, Mountain Life celebrates a West Coast slacker icon. Words :: Grant Lawrence // illustration :: Ben Tour.

Before Schitt’s Creek, before Kim’s Convenience—even before Corner Gas, there was The Beachcombers. The Canadian TV show set in Gibsons, B.C. was an international smash hit, all about a group of salty blue-collar entrepreneurs whose lives revolved around their beat-up boats and a diner named Molly’s Reach.

This year, the show celebrates its 50th anniversary. It first aired on CBC Television on October 1, 1972 and ran weekly until 1990, making it the longest-running show in English Canadian TV history. And while plenty of The Beachcombers names and reference points have endured, the one moniker that is arguably the most synonymous with the show is… Relic.

The undisputed star of The Beachcombers was supposed to be Bruno Gerussi, who played protagonist Nick Adonidas, a proud Greek who ran a log salvage company with his First Nations buddy Jesse Jim, played by Pat John of the local Shíshálh Nation. But by the far the most beloved character was Relic who, played brilliantly by Robert Clothier, held a more antagonistic anti-hero role, and was once referred to as “Canada’s all-time most popular scoundrel” in the commemorative book Bruno and the Beach: The Beachcombers at 40. 

Relic The Beachcombers Ben Tour illustration

For this landmark anniversary of the show, we’re here to celebrate Relic’s underlying legacy in West Coast life, lore, and culture. The iconic wharf rat’s look was disheveled and unshaven, with unkempt hair sticking out from under his omnipresent well-worn toque. An unbuttoned mack jacket pulled over layers of colourless shirts. Canvas flood pants held up by suspenders revealed beat-up Converse-style sneakers. If you were to walk into any craft brewing tasting room along the coast today and look around, chances are you’d see many of the staff and half the patrons adorned in that slacker-barnacle-Relic-style clothing. Relic: the hipster template.

Jackson Davies, who played the bumbling and hilarious Constable Constable on The Beachcombers, notes that Relic always existed on a whole other level of classic cool. When I asked him why, Davies put together the following list:

“Relic could drive his ultracool jet boat at 100 kilometres an hour, with one hand on the wheel, and the other resting on the windshield while playing with a toothpick in his mouth, with his knee pushed down on the throttle.”

 “Relic was way ahead of the curve on the tiny housing craze, living in a one-room float house named the ‘Chuckchee’ down on the dock.” 

 “Relic’s actual character name was Stafford T. Phillips. The ‘T’ stood for Taffy.”

 “Relic’s woolen headwear was so famous that Roots sold a knockoff Beachcombers toque.”

 “Relic had omnipresent stubble long before Don Johnson. (Miami Vice ran for six years, The Beachcombers: 19).”

Relic’s last snarl came in the final episode of the series, entitled “Sunset,” in 1990. In 1996, Clothier suffered a stroke. He passed away in 1999 in North Vancouver at age 77. 

Clothier may be gone, but Relic and the show have lived on in popular culture, having been referenced by bands like Relic’s Jetboat, Molly’s Reach, and Bruno Gerussi’s Medallion, as well as gathering mentions on TV shows like The Simpsons and Corner Gas.


Related:

Friday Flick: A Tribute to the Sunshine Coast

This year, Bill Wouterloot, CBC Vancouver’s last remaining crew member from The Beachcombers, announced his retirement. When I asked Bill if he had any memories of Clothier’s Relic, he didn’t hesitate.

“Robert was the consummate professional. He always showed up on set knowing every one of Relic’s lines, and would accept any situation that they threw at Relic—no matter how disgusting.”

Clothier, also a decorated World War II pilot, had to be held back from doing many of the outrageous stunts involving his character, such as jumping the jet boat over a log boom or leaping into a mud pit, but in the episode where Relic does a swan dive fully clothed from the top of the Gibsons government wharf, yes, that’s really Clothier.

And while Relic was the ultimate duplicitous, miserly, grubby hermit, Wouterloot points out that Clothier was a gentleman. “What I always found so endearing,” continued Wouterloot, who did set design for the show, “was that if a small child came by, he would go out of his way to delight them with a story. That’s what I admired the most about Robert.”

So the next time you stop into Persephone Brewing in Gibsons, and the young, unshaven bartender in the toque and mack jacket serves up a cold glass of Coast Life Lager, be sure to raise a toast to the legacy of Robert Clothier’s Relic, icon of the coast. 

Grant Lawrence is a CBC personality and the author of the award-winning bestseller Adventures In Solitude, and the recently published follow-up Return To Solitude. Both books were directly influenced by The Beachcombers, Grant’s all-time favourite Canadian TV show. Check out Grant’s live storytelling at An Evening of Stories and Songs in the Mountains on Thursday, June 16 at the Maury Young Arts Centre in Whistler.

ML Coast Mountains: The Optimism Issue – Out Now
Total
24
Shares
Share 24
Tweet 0
Pin it 0
Share 0
Share 0
Share 0
Related Topics
  • COAST MOUNTAINS
  • Gibsons BC
  • The Beachcombers
Mountain Life Media

Previous Article
  • Videos

Friday Flick: Waterproofing 101

  • May 13, 2022
  • Sarah Bulford
View Post
Next Article
  • On The Trail
  • The Great Outdoors

Helly Hansen Presents: Adventure Planning 101 with Squamish SAR

  • May 16, 2022
  • Sarah Bulford
View Post
You May Also Like
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer
  • Skiing
  • Snowboarding

End of an Era: Another Double Chair Bites the Dust

  • Sarah Bulford
  • March 28, 2023
Mountain-Life-20th-showreel
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer
  • On The Trail
  • Photography
  • Videos

20 Years of ML

  • Editor
  • March 24, 2023
Bora-Boreal-Quebec-winter-cabin-stars
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer
  • Stay & Play

Bora Boréal: Frozen in Time and Ice

  • Mountain Life Media
  • March 14, 2023
Skiis-and-Biikes
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer
  • Ontario
  • Skiing
  • Snowboarding

Skiis & Biikes Looks to the Future

  • Mountain Life Media
  • March 6, 2023
A-Forest-Journey-Patagonia-cover-photo
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer

A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization

  • Ned Morgan
  • March 2, 2023
Nalaga-Avis-O_Brien
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer
  • Women

Bringer of Light: A Conversation with N’alaga

  • Editor
  • March 1, 2023
Nnormal-No-Lost-Shoes-film
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer
  • Videos

Friday Flick: No Lost Shoes

  • Editor
  • February 17, 2023
View Post
  • Mountain Lifer
  • On The Trail
  • Photography
  • Stay & Play

Let It Roar

  • Sarah Bulford
  • February 9, 2023
Featured Posts
  • 1
    End of an Era: Another Double Chair Bites the Dust
    • March 28, 2023
  • Skiing at Hudson Bay Mountain in Smithers 2
    Where Eagles Dare
    • March 27, 2023
  • Mountain-Life-20th-showreel 3
    20 Years of ML
    • March 24, 2023
  • Mustang-Survival-WOMENS-HELIX-CCS 4
    Gear Shed: Our End-of-Winter Picks
    • March 23, 2023
  • natural-selection-Redbull 5
    Friday Flick: Natural Selection Tour Highlights
    • March 17, 2023
RECENT POSTS
  • Powder-Highway-BC-ski
    Powder Highway Revisited
    • March 21, 2023
  • AleTrailsSouthernInterior_Vernon_MikeGamble_LookoutTrail_BenHaggarPhoto
    Ale Trails: Southern Interior Part 1, Vernon + Shuswap
    • March 20, 2023
  • Elements-Outfitters-Filson-cabin
    Elements Outfitters Partners with SALTS to Protect Alberta’s Incredible Landscapes
    • March 16, 2023
Social Links
Instagram 22K Followers
Facebook 25K Likes
Twitter 5K Followers
Pinterest 1K Followers
Vimeo 34 Followers
LinkedIn 0
INSTAGRAM
mountainlifemedia
22K Followers
No one called me Feet Banks back in 1987. In those days, most people called me by my given name—except for my ski buddies, to whom I was known by the most badass moniker to ever schuss the slopes: Twinkle Toes.
We’re celebrating 20 Years of Mountain Life!
From The Gear Shed: Last Monday was the official start of spring, but we know there’s still some winter to be shredded. So ML staff and partners have picked the latest jackets, lanterns, bindings, mugs and drysuits for winter-spring.
Exploring the sights around beautiful Sutton, Quebec with ML creator @adv_bird ❄️🫶
Back on the road with three generations, dancing lifties, best-on-planet pizza and elusive-but-exquisite pow days.
Live It Up EP 24 is out now!
The Southern Interior region of BC holds an ecological cross-section of the province with alpine meadows, arid Douglas fir grasslands, damp cedar and hemlock forests of the Columbia Mountains and the warm expanse of Shuswap Lake.
Do Not Disturb mode activated ✅ #mountainlifer
Conceived by superhuman snowboarder @travisrice, the @naturalselection Tour highlights earth’s premier riders, from big-mountain mavens to Olympians, all competing on the most stoketastic—and unpredictable—terrain known to humankind.
Built upon a shared desire to enjoy, respect, and advocate for Alberta’s incredible landscapes, it was a natural fit for @elementsoutfitters to work with a local conservation organization @saltslandtrust to highlight the province’s rugged beauty and outdoor apparel to match.
Follow

Subscribe

Subscribe now to our newsletter

No one called me Feet Banks back in 1987. In those days, most people called me by my given name—except for my ski buddies, to whom I was known by the most badass moniker to ever schuss the slopes: Twinkle Toes.
We’re celebrating 20 Years of Mountain Life!
From The Gear Shed: Last Monday was the official start of spring, but we know there’s still some winter to be shredded. So ML staff and partners have picked the latest jackets, lanterns, bindings, mugs and drysuits for winter-spring.
Exploring the sights around beautiful Sutton, Quebec with ML creator @adv_bird ❄️🫶
Back on the road with three generations, dancing lifties, best-on-planet pizza and elusive-but-exquisite pow days.
Live It Up EP 24 is out now!
Mountain Life
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Advertising

Input your search keywords and press Enter.