William Hilts
1977 – 2015
William Hilts died on Friday May 22nd, doing what he loved, flying a water bomber fighting forest fires in northern Alberta. He was 38. He leaves behind his parents, Maria and Stewart Hilts, his younger brother Matthew and his wife Paula, his sister Katherine and her husband Darryl, his nephew Jaxson, and his grandmother Rosa Gallo, as well as many other aunts, uncles and cousins. He also leaves a very strong network of friends in BC and elsewhere, many with ties to the flying community.
William took his pilot training at Confederation College in Thunder Bay, later flying for Kenora Air Services, Turtle Airways in Fiji, Harbour Air out of Prince Rupert, and Wasaya Airways in northern Ontario. He worked his way to his dream job flying water bombers for Conair in BC and Alberta starting four years ago. He was part of the team fighting the Cold Lake fire when his plane went down.
The family would appreciate stories, memories and photos from his friends. If you feel so compelled, donate to a charity of your choice in memory of Will.
If for some reason you are unable to post pictures, tributes or stories, please feel free to email Katherine at ksaynor@outlook.com or Matthew at oldbill_667@hotmail.com and we will be sure to post them on your behalf.
Tributes
Leave a tributeYou are truly a professional pilot worth remembering. You always stood up for yourself, when you knew you were right, and were always unselfishly there to help others. You left too soon....but will always be fondly remembered. RIP
Jerry Singh
Love you and miss you.
God bless you and all men and women doing their best against such a foe. Safety first and be careful out there everyone. Keep Will in your minds, and stay safe.
The cedar we cut that day 3 Februarys ago is still in my barn. I can't bring myself to cut it up. It is still beautiful, still has that red band around the outside. I have been doing wood trying to fill the shed before fire season. Everyone is out there already stuff burning. It is tough to be enthusiastic about it today though. Just hope everyone gets back safe.
I watched the video of you telling my baby to "Jump Monkey". If you could see him now. He is my son thats for sure. I think it hurts the most that you are not around to share in the good times with these boys. Devon is turning into a fine young man. I will make sure they know who you were and we will try not to take things for granted.
I guess enough time has past to admit I illegally buried some of you at the geological south pole. I used the actual marker to pound a hole in the snow to dump you in. Of course I cried and of course my eyelids frozen shut and then I was stumbling around blind at the south pole thinking to myself that son of a bitch Will would be rolling on the ground laughing at me right now calling me a Jackass.
From the folks at Conair Hangar 3.
You told me to not have regrets in life. To chase my dreams. To make changes when necessary. It's been very hard but I am trying and I know you are encouraging me from where you are.
Love you and miss you dearly. My heart still hurts that you are gone.
I first met Will 15 years ago. I was working for Red Lake airways Will for Kenora Air. I can’t specifically say we were friends, it was an occasion meeting while I was there for maintenance and it was only a few times. Other than bouncing a few potatoes off the side of the ferry SS Kenora from with a massive hairspray powered potato cannon the only real memory I have of Will from that time was one afternoon I was southbound from deer lake to Selkirk Mb and Will was northbound in the piston Otter with Norm. Norm was a legend in the north and a master Otter pilot. I think Will was getting checked out with an external load. They had a boat tied to the side and were chugging along on a hot summer day heading really far north. I asked them why they were only at 3000 feet when they were heading so far north to which Norm calmly explained that in a piston Otter 3000 feet was high enough to glide somewhere when you had an engine failure but not too high that you would burn up before getting there.
So officially Will and I met and became friends right here in Seal Cove in October 2003. I showed up to visit my buddy Gord who was working at Inland Air and I planned to ride my motorcycle down the west coast to Mexico and back. I was offered a job and ended up staying and the rest of the story everyone here knows. I look back at the years in Seal Cove with Will and our little circle of friends and I see them as some of the best years of my life. Great friends, great flying, great times. We hunted, we fished, we shared dreams we forged a friendship that would or should have lasted a lifetime.
Eventually the group splintered, Mike Ross left first, then I left, Will left later. Time to chase bigger and better things. I had made up my mind I wanted to live on the Charlottes and I had to find some money to make that a reality. Will was pursuing the means to get hired by Conair. We drifted apart, lost contact and the daily grind of life continued.
I’ve always found that the mark of a true friendship was the inability of time to affect the quality of the bond. Such was the relationship I had with Will. After 3 or 4 years of silence he came back, and we picked up exactly where we left off. Hunting, fishing, long periods of whiskey philosophy by the fireplace. We had finally arrived at the end of the beginning of our dreams.
Tragically and unbelievably all of that ended on May 22. He was a son to my parents, a father to my sons, and truly my best friend. I loved him in every sense of the word. In the void he leaves behind I find myself wishing I could see him one more time because I would say this:
Dear Will;
Thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you for always being that reasonable intelligent decision maker while we dared the stormy skies around Prince Rupert. Thank you for all those times when being headstrong and impatient I was charging out into the wind and swells and you said "Fuck it lets go drink some more coffee!" Thank you for the times when I couldn’t be swayed and you were my reluctant wing man. Thank you for pointing out every time I was a jackass by telling me simply "Jackass!"
Thank you for defending me when I deserved it, and even when maybe I didn't. Thank you for years of patient friendship, for sharing the rivers, and the woods and the beaches and backroads of Haida Gwaii. Thank you for sharing your books with me, even if I was bad at returning them. Thank you for helping me fill my wood shed and freezer before winter. Thank you for working until midnight the night before I left for Antarctica as we triumphantly raised my wind turbine into the sky to provide power to my family for the winter.
Thanks for being a father to my sons during my long and difficult absences from their lives. Thank you for the 14 hours spent crawling around in my filthy, damp, cold spider infested basement crawl space insulating my floors so that my family would be warm for the winter. Thank you for not killing my wife when after emerging from said basement 14 hours later and being asked "What’s for supper?"
Thank you for keeping my family safe when things went sideways. Thank you doing all of this without ever having been asked or expected to. Thank you for having the intelligence and sense of adventure to see my dreams, my plans and vision for the future when everyone else thought I was crazy.
Most importantly, and from the bottom of my heart thank you for being my friend when it was very difficult to be my friend. I wouldn't be standing here today with a happy healthy family if you hadn't been that friend.
Thank you Will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec7loUVZNN0
I am the eagle, I live in high country
In rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky,
I am the hawk and there's blood on my feathers,
But time is still turning, they soon will be dry,
And all of those who see me, and all who believe in me
Share in the freedom I feel when I fly.
Below is the information for the two memorial services that have been arranged so far.
The memorial service in Ontario will be held in Markdale on Saturday July 18, 2015 with the visitation starting at 12:00pm, the service at 2:00pm and with a reception to follow.
Annesley United Church
82 Toronto Street, Markdale ON
N0C 1H0
The memorial service in British Columbia will be held in Langley on Friday October 2, 2015 starting at 2:00pm.
Christian Life Assembly
21277 56 Avenue, Langley BC
V2Y 1M3
Please feel free to forward this information to anyone who wishes to attend that may not see this message. Thank you.
Besides being an excellent, experienced pilot......Will Hilts was a fine gentleman, willing to help others, an honest man, kind,... and a man worth remembering.
Present ....and former North BC coast seaplane pilots are like a band of brothers......and Will Hilts...one of our brothers will truly be missed.
...........Rest In Peace bother Will........
It is only now that I read about your terrible news on Stew's blog. I am terribly sorry to read about Will's death. You must have been very proud of all his achievements. From what I read, he seems to have been an exceptional person. He must leave a terrible hole in your life. My thoughts are with you and your family and I offer you my deepest sympathy.
Oh, my home is in the mountains, I am free, I am free.
I am one with wind and eagles, I am free. Given wings to sail in gracefulness, the sky, the sky.
Given a voice to sing in breathlessness, I find that I can fly, fly away.
I've been a long time on the highway, I've been a long time on the run.
And it gets to be like chaos when I'm so long away from home.
And sometimes it's just to much to bare and I hide behind my eyes.
I can picture friendly faces and I can dream of friendly skies.
And I guess that I'm a lucky one for the truth of what I know.
For my heart had not denied me and I have somewhere to go.
I shall never be a prisoner of steel and glass and stone.
If I leave, I will return again to my Rocky Mountain home.
Oh, my home is in the mountains, I am free, I am free.
I am one with wind and eagles, I am free. Given wings to sail in gracefulness, the sky, the sky.
Given a voice to sing in breathlessness, I find that I can fly, fly away.
In the hands of my father, in the light of the sunshine. On the wings of an eagle, I'm flying again.
I'm flying again, I'm flying again, I'm flying again, I'm flying again.
John Denver.
We are now planning two celebrations of Will's life, both here in Ontario and in B.C. The service here will be held at Annesley United Church in Markdale on July 18th, at 2 p.m. with visitation from 12, and a reception afterwards. The service in B.C. will be held just after fire season ends, on Oct. 2nd, and will be in Langley. Further details to come.
4 of us bought a vehicle that may have been unfit for the road, and went for a drive south. We cut the roof off 'cause it was gonna be warm where we were going. We had some vehicle related issues along the way, but Will was one of those folks who made you feel like everything was gonna be ok. He also was one of those guys who brought tools.
We didn't see each other much in the last few years. He stopped by a couple of years ago with a cooler full of salmon in the truck, on his way somewhere to visit someone. He was easy company, a solid friend, consistent and as genuine as they get...always easy to pick up where we left off. I'll miss him. My sincerest condolences to his family and to everyone else who shared time with him.
Although the time was brief, I am thankful for the opportunity to have known Will and will miss him very much
i remember him at Sand lake too, chasing your beagle round and round on the beach.
Leave a Tribute
Fishing again
We waded up from the bridge north of town, floundering a bit, teaching ourselves to fly fish. We separated and will found his way through the shallows, upstream to the far bank. He rested on the shore and spoke to a man walking a dog.
soon after, he gathered his things and headed my way. When he was part way back, the man arrived on the bank again, with a golf club and balls. He set up and teed of, launching a ball our way.
Will said “ he thinks he owns the river, let’s go.”
he continued to launch balls at us as we headed down river. He never really got close and Will never really got mad about it, he just laughed it off. I don’t think we caught any fish that day. I don’t suppose it really matters. Eventually we spread out a bit, found new watersand even landed a few fish.
The Backstory
A few years later, on our trip to Newfoundland, the boys got a chance to fish for capelin (like sardines). When the 'capelin were in', the locals would bring their nets and pails down to the beach and fill a pail to freeze for the winter. The boys took their simple nets down to an already crowded small beach and successfully pulled out forty or so small fish. Matt, in his enthusiasm went too far in and a local simply grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him back to safety. I think there was almost more fun later as the boys gleefully cut the heads off the fish and rolled them in flour. Then we had a big feed of capelin, bones and all.
On the same trip the boys got to try their hand at 'jigging' for cod. Jigging for cod involves no bait and no fishing rod. You simply drop a line with a weighted hook over the side of the boat and pulled it up in short little jerks, 'jigging it', hoping to snag a fish. We went out on a fishing boat and the boys caught several small cod. But the highlight was when our tour guide, in a trick I'm sure he had done many times before, threw a fish high in the air and a Bald Eagle came swooping out of nowhere to grab it as it hit the water. None of us will forget that moment!
The highlight of my fishing memories is our trip to Alaska. First there was a tumbling stream on the Alaska Highway where the boys clambered down over the boulders to catch a small grayling or two. Then, not far east of Fairbanks, we joined locals at a fishing access point, and this time it was Will's brother Matt who caught the best fish, a huge King Salmon nearly 3 feet long!
But it was the 'combat fishing' in Valdez that I remember most. Fishermen were lined up shoulder to shoulder down the pier, and Kate, Matt and Will all lined up. The salmon were running, and they pulled out salmon as fast as they could throw their lines back in, a fishing experience of a lifetime. At this point Kate was 10, Matt 14 and Will 17.
Finally as we travelled the Skeena Highway home east of Prince Rupert, we turned off at the Hazeltons, determined to find a tributary small enough to fish in safely. We made our way to the Kispiox River and the boys finally managed to fish in a beautiful northern river, donning hip waders and getting out their fly fishing gear. And they each caught a fish too, trout as I remember. Thus their lifetime love of fishing was built.
So those are my memories of the back story to Brad and Will's summer of fishing on Haida Gwaii.
A Fish Tale
Id been volunteering to run a sub base out of Masset for North Pacific Seaplanes in the summer months. The first year was pretty slow but the next year was quite busy, busy enough to have the Otter come over on weekends to do lodge work.
Well Will and I used that opportunity to spend almost all our free time fishing that summer. We did so much fishing. I've never done that much fishing before or ever since.
We fished every river, creek and stream on Haida Gwaii. Walked so far up Yakoun I can't remember all the pools we fished. We had both bought ourselves new Sage fly rods and reels. Even had our names engraved on them from the factory. It was epic.
Trout, and every species of salmon. I remember 20 pound spring salmon in the Pallant Creek stripping our reels down to the backing in less than 2 feet of water. It was so much fun. Bears stealing our fish off the landing, so many fish in the river you could feel them rubbing against your waiders as they swam upstream. Both of us physically exhausted from catching fish.
We caught so many pink and chum salmon in the Copper that we just didn't count or even more astonishingly didn't keep score. This was before the age of cell phone cameras and no serious fisherman caries a camera in the middle of the river. It would have been nice to have some pictures. I can still remember the smiles and happy exhaustion that came from hours of successful fishing and the drive back in the dark to the crew house.
I can say with certainty that I've never had such a wonderful summer as that one, never caught so many fish, never dedicated so much time to the art of fishing and learning the rivers. I've never been back to most of the places, and the fishing is done in some of them forever. It was a much happier and simpler time back then. Just flying seaplanes, nothing fancy, home every night, familiar with everyone.
Writing this from the other side of the world I can say have no regrets with my career and the adventures and where I'm at now, but I can honestly say without hesitation I'd trade it all for one more summer like that with Will. Just a summer dedicated to two friends and the art of fly fishing.