We regret to advise of the death of Lieutenant Michael Joseph Rouse (Ret’d) in Cranbrook BC on 17 May 2023 at age 84 after a valiant year-long battle with cancer.
Mike was born in Belleville ON and was raised on a small farm in the hamlet of Smithfield ON where he attended a one-room village school. He graduated from East Northumberland Secondary School in nearby Brighton and then attended the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton NB . Mike was a member of the Canadian Officer Training Corps at UNB and spent the summers of 1957-59 training as a Royal Canadian Engineer Officer Cadet at the Royal Canadian School of Military Engineering in Chilliwack BC.
Mike graduated from UNB in 1962 with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry and went on to complete his Masters of Business Administration at McMaster’s University in Hamilton ON in 1966. He then began his career in forestry, lumber, and pulp & paper at Domtar. Mike worked mostly at the company headquarters in Montreal QC and rose to become General Manager, Lumber Division, and General Manager, Ontario Woodlands.
Following his dream to live and work in the Canadian Rockies, Mike moved his family to Cranbrook BC in 1981, where he took the position of Vice President, Operations for Crestbrook Forest Industries. When Crestbrook was acquired by Tembec Inc. in 2001, Mike was appointed as that company’s Senior Vice President of BC Operations, a position he held until his retirement in 2004. In retirement, he was appointed annually by the BC government to the Columbia Basin Trust’s board of directors between 2003-2009.
Mike was an avid and skilled outdoorsman, fisherman and hunter. His love of the outdoors was one of the main motivations for settling in the East Kootenay. He purchased a working 315-acre, 50-head cattle ranch and hay farm on St. Mary’s Prairie near Wycliffe BC in 1984.
Mike was never happier than when he and his wife Odette were doing chores around the ranch, from cutting, raking and bailing hay to attending to late-night calving emergencies in sub-zero February weather. Beside farming and outdoors activities, Mike was an avid reader of history and literature. He traveled the world where highlights included: traveling up the Amazon in a rickety riverboat, hiking up stairs on the Great Wall of China, eating sushi in Tokyo, and lounging on beaches in Cuba, Hawaii, Vietnam, and the French Riviera, among many others.
A Celebration of Life will be held in July at the family farm. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Cranbrook Food Bank Society. Online condolences can be sent to the funeral home.
