Local link to moon walk

As the world looks back on the first moon landing 50 years ago to the day, a Kelowna woman is remembering her father.

David Strangway wore many hats over his 82 years on earth, but in 1969, the geophysicist was a “principal investigator” at NASA during the Apollo 11 mission, before he moved to Houston from Toronto in 1970 to become NASA's chief geophysicist.

He was responsible for designing lunar experiments for many Apollo missions and analyzed many of the samples once they were returned to earth.

“Maybe it's less exciting than the rocket, but it was a big part of what they were doing and why they were doing it and they helped discover how old we are, how old the moon is, what the similarities and differences are,” said Trish Forrest, David Strangway's daughter.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin brought back almost 50 pounds of material from the moon, much of which ended up in Strangway's lab at the University of Toronto, and eventually, in a box on the floor of his office at UBC Vancouver.

In 1969, Strangway brought many of the moon rocks back to Toronto in his suitcase.

“Customs asked him, 'Do you have anything to declare,' and he said 'Oh just a bunch of moon rocks,' and they laughed and sent him on,” Forrest said. Later that night, customs agents showed up at the family home and had him sign several forms, after they realized he hadn't been joking.

“I don't know what forms you sign for moon rocks but they were signed,” Forrest said with a laugh.

She said her father's involvement with the space program, through to Apollo 17 in 1972, was a big part of her childhood.

“I didn't realized how fascinating this was for the world until I was older,” she said.

Forrest, who's now a lawyer, says her father's science gene appears to have skipped a generation, as her and her brother's kids are “science people.”

“As they've grown up they've realized more and more the contributions that their grandfather made to science,” she said.

After his work with the space program, he worked his way up to become the president of the University of Toronto for a year, before moving west and taking on the same role at UBC from 1985 to 1997.

In 1997, he helped found the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, a non-profit that invests in Canadian research facilities. He also spent years founding Quest University in Squamish, which opened in 2007.

In 2007, Strangway moved to Kelowna with his wife, where Forrest already lived. She says he loved the Okanagan, and his family was always very important to him.

In December 2016, he passed away suddenly at his home. Forrest says while it was a bit of a chaotic night, her husband brought her outside to look at the moon at one point.

“It was huge and beautiful and one of the more spectacular moons,” she said. It was the last Supermoon of 2016, when the moon is at its closest point to the earth.

“We felt that the moon was bending down to say goodbye to my dad. None of us can look at the moon without thinking about my dad because he literally brought us the moon.”