March 28, 2021
1951-2021 ~ Marilyn lived her life with love and passion.
In her love of art, she served as Artistic Director for the Great Northern Arts Festival in Inuvik with passionate energy from 1997 through 2001. She found a spiritual kinship with many of the artists of the far north, a rapport that remained through the years after she left Inuvik in late 2001.
Marilyn also fell in love with the arctic landscape, and she would go out into it, either on her own or with her close friend, José. She liked to say, "Love the North; hate the cold." But the cold didn't stop her from splitting the twisted Mackenzie River firewood at minus 40 to heat her "five-twelve" house.
In Whitehorse, Marilyn worked in a gallery, or two, where she enjoyed the good nature of co-workers, and found a close friend or two along the way. She had a unique humor and warmth that touched people.
In her love for the things of the earth—the birds that sang in her heart, the creatures of the forests that brought gifts of joy to her, the flowers that blessed her in their bloom—all of these she watched with passion, and learned their names and ways. She was in ecstasy when surrounded by a field of wildflowers, or finding a hidden orchid, or in greeting a familiar old matriarch squirrel, or in the arrival of the birds she fed, as they fed her spirit.
In her passion for reading she traveled the realms of the far places and times, of histories and cultures, of spirit and religion, of science and magic. Her passions for the accounts of humanity ran high. She had no patience for willful ignorance and dogma, and she didn't shrink from debating it—passionately. It could be high-spirited, and it could be unnerving when she was on fire, flying high, wielding a sharply honed intellect.
Fortunately Marilyn was more down to earth on a September day in 2002 at a small gathering when the man soon to be her life-partner saw her leaning elegantly against an open door. She had just put him in his place with a friendly jab a moment earlier, and he was thus smitten. Lucky for him she was just being a little flirtatious. Lucky for him because of the realms and the adornments of living she would present to him during their 19 years together.
In her later years she loved most of all traveling to the far realms from a cozy bed piled with pillows and books in her little cabin by a lake, with her cats and her man.
She met the increasing gravity and debilitation of cancer with profound strength of character. Born in 1951, Marilyn left this world on March 28, 2021 in the compassionate care of the Wind River Hospice House. The deepest thanks to all of them.
Marilyn is survived by her husband, Lance Scoville, and her cousin Brian Potoroka. She will be missed by so many she has touched during her time in this world.
Memories and comments can be sent to scoville@klondiker.com