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Winnipeg lawyer Marika Nerbas, judge Murray Sinclair, Gail Asper, and lawyer Catherine Kelly in the Manitoba Bar Association/Manitoba Theatre Centre co-production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in April 2007. if you never practise a day in your life," he suggested, "you will never regret having this education." She yielded, applied, and was accepted to the U of M's law school, where she stud- ied without distraction, since boyfriend Mike Paterson was in Indiana pursuing a master's degree in science. When the two completed their degrees, Paterson got a PhD of- fer from Dalhousie University in Halifax, so they married and moved east. "I was a Prairie girl by the ocean, with the fish and the seaweed, the fog and kelp," she says, laughing. We're sitting in her Asper Foun- dation office, a private charitable foundation halfway up 31 floors at Canwest Place on Winnipeg's storied Portage-and-Main corner. She is managing director. Her desk is obscured by paper and, next to it, her briefcase: a small suitcase on wheels with its retract- able handle still aloft. A blue leather swivel-chair is cloaked in Post-it notes and printed e-mails, a trick her assistant employs to ensure the boss reads them before sitting down. Asper chooses a different chair and the storytelling begins. "My first day in Halifax, I'm walking around, door-to- PHOTO: MANITOBA THEATRE CENTRE. associate's job the following year with Goldberg MacDonald (now Goldberg Thompson) where she practised corporate- commercial and real estate law from 1985 to 1989. "I do remember her. I was young and a bachelor then, and helped me get involved again in arts and culture. It opens doors." was the law which "So it she was very attractive," Walter R. E. Goodfellow says, laugh- ing at his candor. He's on the phone from Nova Scotia, where he is now a judge with the Nova Sco- tia Supreme Court and the Court Mar- tial Appeal Court of Canada. "She was intelligent and had a keen interest in people. A lot of students are intelli- gent but they don't have a grasp of human nature and they don't have an interest in the human aspect," he says. "I'm a firm believer that if you deal with the people aspect of law — criminal, family, es- tate work, that kind of thing — it hones your judgment." Victor Goldberg got to know Asper well in four years and door, going for interviews to all these firms, and it's April," says Asper, who will be 48 this month and is mother to Ste- phen, 17, and Jonathan, 15. "It's about three degrees Celsius and it's horrible sleet. I'm trying to look my best but my hair is becoming plastered and frozen and I look so bedraggled walking down Barrington Street. I'll never forget it." She ar- ticled with Cox Downie & Goodfellow and then landed an remains friends with her today. "I remember the first transac- tion she helped me on was the sale of this establishment in the north end of Halifax. I took Gail up with me. For some reason, we had to visit the site," says Goldberg, from his Nova Scotia office. "It was a combination massage parlour and S&M establishment, and the proprietor, who had these 40-inch nails, was giving us the tour. In one of the rooms, there were handcuffs. I mean, you can just imagine." Asper shakes her head and smiles. "I think her name was Misty Lee. It was an eye-opener extraordinaire, but funny. She was really an extravagant dresser. Hey, this was a city of brothels and sailors and still is," she says. "There was never a dull moment www. C ANADIAN mag.com M AY 2008 35