Construction veteran Bobby Drapeau dies in Nunavik plane crash
Robert Jr. “Bobby” Drapeau was a man of action. The 48-year-old construction veteran with a quick laugh and quicker wit never stopped moving. He died on the move, on a foggy evening June 11, when his twin-engine Piper Aztec crashed only two kilometres from the airport in the Nunavik village of Kangirsuk.
He was travelling there with his 23-year-old son, Alexandre Veilleux, and pilot Bob Corbin, 77, to deliver a cargo hold full of groceries to the community and to see his two adopted Inuit daughters. Veilleux and Corbin were to continue on as Drapeau set about preparing employees of the construction firm he founded there – Kong-struction, the company profiled in the Nation recently – for a busy work season.
The community honoured him in a ceremony June 15. According to the Nunatsiaq News, messages from local residents flooded Drapeau’s Facebook page, thanking Drapeau for all he had invested into their community, calling him a “caring” and “helpful” person.
“I will complete your wish and dream, I will live up to the promises you made me promise,” wrote one young Kong-struction employee.
Drapeau was well known to the Crees, many of whom he knew since childhood, particularly in Waswanipi. Later, working with his father’s firm, Construction Val-d’Or, he would manage projects across Eeyou Istchee, training and employing many Crees along the way.
He would even make an impact in South America, where he travelled in his 20s to oversee the construction of an airport in Guyana for a Canadian mining firm. Because it received international flights, it was officially named “Bobby Drapeau International Airport” while the mine remained open.
After selling his stake in his late father’s firm a few years ago, he was hired by the Kativik Regional Government to teach heavy equipment operation to Inuk workers in Kangirsuk. He fell in love with the community and, typical of his approach, had a vision of an Inuit-run company that would grow to work on projects across the north. This spring, Drapeau began meeting with companies, among them the Raglan mine, to sell the talents he had helped nurture. He was on the verge of realizing his dream when fate claimed him.
As he told the Nation last April, creating a local company that employs and trains local people was important to him. “I’ve seen many southern companies bring a lot of people in and not hire any local Inuit people. Or if they did, only to do the most menial jobs like picking up scrap materials. I didn’t appreciate that. So that’s why we’re trying to turn this in another direction.”
His approach was deeply personal, which is why he gained such love and respect from those whose lives he touched. “We use every opportunity to teach one another,” he told the Nation. “That’s why we are a family. We learn to respect the rules, and we come into work on time. That’s our philosophy: learn one, do one, teach one.”
Rest in peace, Bobby Drapeau.