Happy Valley-Goose Bay is mourning but also celebrating the life of Norbert May, otherwise known as Bert the Barber, who died Monday at the age of 82.
"He was the best barber we ever had in Goose Bay," said Henry White, who worked along side May for years.
When May began giving haircuts on the Goose Bay air force base, they cost only 90 cents. He eventually started up his own barber shop "in the middle of the woods" on a nameless street that the town later named "Bert's Loop" in his honour and also to make the shop easier to find.
"He was in that location hid away for many, many years, no sign," White said.
"Finally we said, 'Bert's Loop,' shouldn't have no more problems."
May was 23 when he arrived in Goose Bay, heavy with memories of the war.
"He had some tough days in the war," White said. "He told me he saw Hitler."
Stories, stories, stories
Nearly everybody who passed through May's chair got to hear the stories about the time he gave Pierre Trudeau a haircut or that time George H.W. Bush stopped by while in Labrador on a fishing trip. By all accounts, he was a character who was hard to forget.
"The fondest memory was the cigarette hanging out of the mouth," Leo Hagerty said. "That's how I envision him today."
"He said he never inhaled," Shirley White said. "I was like, 'Bert, how could you never inhale? You're smoking, right?'"
He was so efficient, so proficient at what he did. He was the best of the best. - Leo Hagerty
White broke off from May in the mid-'90s and started up his own shop but he brought lots of good memories with him.
"We had a few drinks together. Many a day we shut the shop down at three o'clock," White said.
May is also fondly remembered by the many, many more who passed through his chair over the more than half a century he spent cutting hair in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.
"Good and friendly, good stories and he was a good barber too. A lot of people are going to miss him," said Terry Roberts of Goose Bay.
"He was so efficient, so proficient at what he did," Hagerty said. "He was the best of the best."