You have seen him...			...now meet Fred Paulig
			by Diana Roberts

Though you might not know him by name, Fred Paulig is known to most people living in Burns Lake as the man who is always walking. Each and every day, rain or shine you'll see 91-year-old Fred Paulig walking through town, up Boar Mountain Road or out along the highway, stopping now and then to visit friends. Born and raised in Berlin, Germany, Fred came to Halifax in 1928. At this time, the government policy was to ship immigrants by train to Winnipeg, with the exception of Scandinavians who went to B.C. to work in logging.

Fred walks each day

Fred longed to see trees and mountains, so he headed west by train until he reached Calgary. Somewhere between Edmonton and Calgary, he got a job as a farm-hand helping to plant crops. After the crops were planted, the farmer said he would pay Fred when the crops were harvested. No pay was ever seen for his work, but it was a lesson well learned.

Fred Paulig

Fred spent some time working in Vancouver, at a saw mill and as a carpenter, for the railroad in Ashcroft and in the bush near Loughborough Inlet. With the start of the Second World War, Fred hitch-hiked north where he found work mining and gold panning in the Cariboo. He made about $2.00 a day, which wasn't a lot, but back then, a meal was only thirty cents.