It’s not just 47 years which separate the ages of two Canadians: 82-year-old Donald Barwick and his friend, 35-year-old Archie, but also hundreds of miles and many degrees of temperature.

While businessman Mr. Barwick lives in Montreal, Archie the harbour seal spends his days swimming and sunning in his special enclosure at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo (BAMZ).

The two first met in 1973 when Mr. Barwick was making a trip to Bermuda and his friend Paul Montreuil, curator of the Montreal Aquarium, asked him to bring two harbour seals, which were being donated to the Flatts facility, to the Island.

Travelling in separate dog carriers as part of Mr. Barwick’s luggage, the sleek two-year-old seals were as unfazed by their airborne travels as was the man who happily accompanied them.

Indeed, the then curator of BAMZ, James Burnett-Herkes, reported back to Mr. Montreuil that, like the seals, his friend had successfully survived the journey also.

Archie and Mehitabel, as the animals were subsequently known following a seal-naming contest ironically won by Mr. Barwick’s daughter Melanie — began life on Sable Island, a remote sand bar 150 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia, and known as “the graveyard of the Atlantic” due to the proliferation of shipwrecks under its shifting sands.

Rescued from Sable Island, the duo were taken to the Montreal Aquarium while efforts were made to donate them elsewhere. At Mr. Barwick’s suggestion, BAMZ became the destination of choice and the deal was, well, sealed.

Over the years, the Canadian printer, who continues as an active consultant at his firm, has checked in on Archie — and Mehitabel when she was alive — during his many visits here, and this week was no exception.

As always, he was pleased to see the old boy — who is believed to be one of the oldest surviving male harbour seals in captivity — still happily living the bachelor’s dream, despite the recent loss of an infected flipper, as the lone male among three females, with free food, lodging, plenty of sunshine and attention from the passing public as part of the good life. “He’s a happy old man, and so am I,” Mr. Barwick quipped.

However, the enduring link with Archie is just one facet of the former paratrooper’s ties with Bermuda, which he first visited in 1971.

Immediately struck by the Island’s beautiful waters, he learned to dive with the late Park Breck, the operator of a diving business at Gibbet Island. Instantly hooked upon this new recreation which, in those days was undertaken with a Scott Airpack, a forerunner of the aqualung, Mr. Barwick subsequently became a member of the Bermuda Divers Association.

“When we reached ten members we closed ranks,” he remembers.

With the likes of John Trimingham, Harry Cox, Park Breck, Teddy Tucker and others, the group spent many fascinating hours exploring Bermuda’s many undersea wrecks, including the infamous Iristo, <$>whose captain had foolishly followed the route as the reef-wrecked Cristobal Colon, and met a similar fate.

After a decade of exploring wrecks and capturing fish on board his US surgeon friend and Bermuda resident Dr. Henry Clay Frick’s boat, Rockfish, <$>captained by Campbell O’Connor, the two grew “bored” and turned their attention to green turtles instead, bringing 3,000 turtle eggs to the Island each year for a decade as part of a breeding programme.

“We hatched about 28,000 turtles,” he remembers.

But there was something that didn’t quite make sense to Mr. Barwick: while the duo were busy hatching baby turtles on the beaches of Nonsuch Island and Dr. Frick’s Castle Point home, adults were being caught and eaten with relish in St. David’s, so he wrote a letter to the editor of this newspaper which he says ended their menu potential.

In fact, the duo were so dedicated to their project that Dr. Frick named his second boat Chelonia, <$>also captained by Mr. O’Connor, after the green turtle’s scientific name. Today, Mr. Barwick still carries the name on a shirt pocket. He also owns a copy of a film made about the turtles as a graphic reminder of the old breeding project.

“I have a soft spot for turtles,” the father of two and grandfather of ten says — and Archie, of course.