Alan McGowan was born in 1930 in Port Alice, B.C. Growing up poor during the Depression, Alan moved with his family from Vancouver Island to Vancouver and then to Princeton, attending twelve different schools in as many years. When he was ten his parents separated, and he taught himself to raise chickens and hunt for grouse and deer to feed the family. He started working as a farm hand at 14 and by 15 had made enough money to help his family and to buy an old Harley-Davidson motorcycle for a solo road trip through California. After finishing school, Alan worked all over B.C. as a ditch digger, miner and logger, and eventually qualified as a journeyman painter. At 24 he decided it was time to settle down. He married and with his bride, Mary, moved to the new city of Kitimat in 1954 to work for Alcan. They raised three children, Joe, Sharon and Skye, and Alan worked for Alcan for 36 years, ultimately becoming a respected project planner of large-scale innovative and ground-breaking engineering projects. When the family moved to Terrace in 1971, Alan founded the Early Riser Cooperative Bus Line between Terrace and Alcan and became well known for his daily radio reports on Highway 37 road conditions. After retirement, Alan pursued his passion for inventing, his love of storytelling, and his hobby of restoring old vehicles, completing work on a '38 Ford truck just before he died in May 2019. He skied until he was 80 and rode his beloved motorcycle until he was 87.