Former Fort St. John mayor receives ‘tremendous honour’

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — A former mayor has been presented with a prestigious honour by Fort St. John city council this week.

Steve Thorlakson, who served the city as a councillor and mayor for over two decades, received the Freedom of the City by council on Tuesday, July 15th.

The honour recognizes significant contributions the recipient has made to the community, according to a City of Fort St. John website. 

But after a career in banking, oil and gas and politics, what’s remarkable about Thorlakson’s story is he almost wasn’t here to receive the honour at all.

In 1969, he left Surrey, B.C. to travel up to Peace River, Alberta for a job which he described as “quite a long drive.”

While on the way, he picked up a hitchhiker named John Melville Ritcey. However, Ritcey was on the run from police in connection with a murder in the Vancouver area in what was described at the time as “the most bizarre, unbelievable cases” by the Vancouver Sun.

It turns out Ritcey had murdered Kenneth Black, and had kept the body in a trunk in his apartment for nearly two months before Ritcey transported the body to woods near Hope with the help of another man.

Thorlakson later told police of his ordeal, including being held for two days with a gun at his throat. The entire episode ended with a roadblock near McLeod Lake north of Prince George.

The story took another bizarre turn at trial, when Leonard McGuire testified he’d been held prisoner in fear of his life for two months in the apartment where Black, his friend, was strangled and mutilated after spurning Ritcey’s sexual advances.

Ritcey was sentenced to life in prison for the murder.

“First of all [it is] probably one of the reasons why I believe [in] God,”  Thorlakson told Energeticcity.ca. “There was no other reason for me to survive. 

“I was being held at gunpoint by this guy who had already murdered one person.  Thankfully, I was spared and had the opportunity to carry on.”

He came to Fort St. John in 1979 after being transferred to the Toronto-Dominion Bank branch in the town while living in Williams Lake.

“I wondered what I had done wrong,” joked Thorlakson. “I was flown up to have a look and talk about the possibilities of finding a house. And there were only six houses in town available in my price range.”

After being involved with the Fort St. John and district chamber of commerce, he was inspired by the foundation laid out by his parents that “you should give back” to the communities you live in.

He ran for city council in 1986, alongside his good friend Peter Vandergugten. The two had served as vice-president and president of the city’s Chamber of Commerce.

“[When we took over] the chamber was in a lot of trouble,” said Thorlakson. “It had $60,000 in debt [and] declining membership. We were able to turn things around to get the chamber debt paid off [and] increase the membership from about 140 [members] up to over 400.”

Elected as an alderman, Thorlakson said the job “didn’t pay a heck of a lot” and described it as a “part-time hobby you took seriously.”

Four years later, he ran for mayor, winning the 1990 election. Thorlakson was re-elected in that capacity for an additional three terms until 2006.

He also served as the president of the Union of BC Municipalities in 1999 and 2000.

During his tenure, he won Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002, which was presented by former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell.  

Friends and family from around the country will be on hand at Fort St. John’s City Hall. 

“It’s a tremendous honour,” said Thorlakson. “It’s a rarity. It’s an honour that I have to share with a lot of people [including] councils that I worked with [and] the brilliant and gifted city manager who laid out the strategies and did the research on the plans that we as a council were able to develop to make some positive things happen.”

The ceremony took place at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.