Hugh Malcolm Fraser

Hugh died peacefully at his home in West Vancouver, surrounded by his family on September 20, 2024. Hugh will be remembered as an intrepid, capable and creative man: someone who was always doing something, and always had his own way of doing it, from designing rainwater collection systems on his property to directing traffic with his cane. He was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and spent his childhood in Kampala, Uganda. An only child, he was predeceased by his parents, Henry Ralph Fraser and Ethel (Jones) Fraser and his wife of fifty-five years, Susan Margaret Murray (Thompson) Fraser in 2018. He is survived by his four children, Sally Krueger, Ian Fraser (Beth), Joanna Annett (Rory), Sheilagh Seaton (Nic) and his daughter in law Melissa Fraser. Hugh has 11 grandchildren, Caitlin Dawe, Alison Henderson, William Krueger, Elisabeth Stewart, Heather Fraser Chan, Dustin Fraser, Sierra Fraser, Monica Rhodes, Katrina Sease, Amanda Thomson and Janine Annett. He has 14 great grandchildren and along with Sue was considered a grandparent and great grandparent to many more who they always welcomed into their home as part of the family.

Hugh attended boarding schools in Kenya as a child and then attended Michaelhouse in South Africa for high school. He then went to London and studied agriculture, where he met his wife, Sue. They bought a farm near Nakuru in Kenya. In 1964 they immigrated to Vancouver, Canada, with their growing family, buying an old home, originally a cottage, in West Vancouver.

Hugh retrained as a Land Surveyor when he came to Canada. He started his own business as a hydrographic surveyor and spent the bulk of his career working for BC Hydro laying cables to all the Gulf Islands up and down the coast.

In the late sixties, Hugh and his neighbour, Dr. "Boots" Boothroyd, who each had three daughters, started a field hockey club in West Vancouver. There were no other team sports available for girls at that time. At first they had only enough girls registered to field two teams, but the club grew very quickly. Now, over fifty years later, the West Vancouver Field Hockey Club fields both boys and girls teams as well as adult teams of all skill levels.

Hugh loved living near the ocean on the West Coast. He and Sue bought land on Galiano Island and he built a cottage there for his family where they swam, fished and water skied. Later, to be closer to his family, he built a new cottage near the beach on Quadra Island where his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren spent as much time as they could catching salmon and crabs and exploring the island and the waters around it.

Even in his later years, despite his arthritis, Hugh continued to be as active as he could, taking his beloved dog, Jessie for walks on the Shellallagan Trail on Quadra using his electric dudu bug (ATV). When he was in West Vancouver, he could be seen scooting in his little blue dudu bug along Bellevue to Delaney’s in Dundarave to have a hot chocolate with some of his children, grandchildren or great grandchildren, and of course, his dog, Jessie.

He loved his family deeply and will be missed by each one of them