264 THE ADVOCATE
VOL. 79 PART 2 MARCH 2021
to assess these things—that this man, my friend, was fortunate to have experienced
the best parts of life. Mike was proud enough to gain entrance to
two exclusive professions (engineering and law), he was curious enough to
learn the meaning of art and poetry, he had known a grand romance with
a good woman, and he had also known the greatest possible happiness in
being a dad. When I remember Mike, I think of his good-natured humour
and how he exemplified a civilized way of seeing and being.
It made Mike Wolfson’s friendship all the more remarkable.
Eric Lundberg
W. Wesley Pue
In April 2019, the Allard School of Law lost one of its
most enthusiastic, innovative and generous scholars
when Professor W. Wesley Pue passed away after liv-
ing courageously with cancer for four years. His con-
tributions to the law school and the University of
British Columbia over 25 years of dedicated service
were many and his impact profound.
Wes was born in Edmonton in 1954. He attended elementary and much
of high school there before a lack of interest in what he was being taught
and a general restlessness precipitated a move to boarding school in the
U.K. There, he thrived, going on to earn a rare first class in geography at
Oxford, followed in short order by another Oxford degree in jurisprudence,
while serving as captain of the boats for the Regent’s Park College rowing
club.
In 1979, Wes returned to Edmonton to pursue an LL.M. at the University
of Alberta. He then articled at a law firm in Yellowknife, an experience that
would leave a profound impression on him of the role of law at the periph-
ery of a colonial state. Having been called to the bar of Alberta and the
Northwest Territories, Wes returned to his studies in the early 1980s to pur-
sue a Ph.D. at Osgoode Hall Law School. It was there that his interest in the
legal profession intersected with the scholarship of historians writing tren-
chant social histories of the law. It was also there that he met Joanne, who
would become his wife and partner in life.