Still Flying After All These Years

Aviation buffs came from as far away as Italy, and the visiting airplanes included some wonderful flying boats, two Albatrosses and a Goose. But the scene-stealer at Yellowknife’s Midnight Sun Seaplane Fly-In in July was a twinkle-eyed pilot , Henry Hicks, 75, from Likely, BC. Hank still holds valid Canadian, British and US pilot’s licences, and his long flying career has taken him all over Canada, the States, and South America (“One of my co-pilots in South America used to be Adolph Hitler’s personal pilot.”)

Hicks first came to Yellowknife in 1953, flying a Beaver for Max Ward, then opened the NWT’s first flying school, Raven Air Services. He was the pilot who unwittingly flew miner Tony Gregson from Yellowknife to Hay River with two stolen gold bricks in 1954. (Gregson was caught three years later in Australia, but the gold was long gone.)

One of Hick’s big moments at the Fly-In was a reunion with his old boss. Max Ward flew his own Twin Otter in for the Wardair base on Back Bay for the four-day gathering.

Hank regaled the crowd at the storytelling session with his colorful adventures--like the time a musk-ox calf yanked him into an icy lake as he was trying to wrestle it onto his pontoon. Or the time he broke all records with a 17-hour flight from in Miami to San Juan to Guyana, South America in a tiny Supercub, its floats filled with gasoline. Or the impromptu float-top recital he performed when Max delivered Discovery Mines’ first and only piano, lashed to the strut of his plane.

He danced up a storm at the farewell banquet with his wife, Rose, but Hicks took a moment to promote his latest videotape about how to get to be 75 without growing old.

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Henry's Home Page

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