I met Hugh Tollett while skiing on Whistler Mountain about 34 years ago. Little did I know what a powerhouse of human spirit I had just plugged into on that stormy winter day.
After that meeting we spent tons of time together, and he became part of our young family as Caroline and I got married.
Huey was game for anything—skiing, mountain biking, skydiving, swimming in whitewater... you name it, he was keen.
He loved our kids and dogs like they were his own, and was always going on adventures and pedalling away on his four bikes that he eventually gave to me for the folks in Mount Currie, when he could no longer ride because of balance issues, due to his brain tumours.
Huey was a tireless volunteer who helped me with more than 40 Loonie Races, 23 Cheakamus Challenges, and 11 BC Bike Races, along with Balding for Dollars with Dave Clark and any other cause he believed in. He was a social warrior, not a poseur.
Probably his biggest act of kindness was when he developed an incredible website for disabled residents and visitors to Whistler, whistlerforthedisabled.com.
He taught himself to program and worked tirelessly on it in order to help others leading up to the 2010 Winter Games. I won’t go into the dark details of the way he was treated by some members of VANOC and within government at the time … it makes me very upset.
Huey’s health was always an issue, as he was diagnosed with fatal brain tumours at an early age. Although he was losing senses slowly from their growth, he tried everything to keep them at bay. Surgery after surgery really took a toll on his spirit, and he still came to visit and always brought treats for the kids and the dogs.
He moved from Whistler to Vancouver to a housing complex for the deaf in East Van with a great park across the street where he wanted me to set up a slackline for him, so he could improve his balance. What a trooper.
He still came up to Whistler, taking the bus and staying with us, walking the dogs and always checking in on his friends. He felt alive up here, surrounded by active people, although his options were limited.
Perhaps my favourite Huey moment was when he came to visit us in Steamboat Springs when we lived there. Huey was a vegetarian and our dog, Beau, a beast of a black Lab, had taken to wandering to the game-processing shop just down the hill from us in Fairview, on the side of Howelsen Hill. The boys had been giving him elk hearts, and he was shining black from the big treats.
Anyways, they decided since it was the weekend they would give him a full femur, which he dragged back up the hill and guarded on his porch. Huey and I were coming back up the hill, and there was a streak of blood on the pavement all the way back to our house. Huey thought Beau had been hit by a car, but to our surprise, there was this black dog with blood all over his muzzle with this massive, four-foot-long femur of an elk. Huey looked at him and said, “I guess he doesn’t like tofu.”
I think one of his favourite days in the last few years was the day we spent with Stu Wild on the barge, cruising on the lake. Not a care in the world. Thanks for that special day, Wildman.
I, along with his hundreds of friends in Alta Lake, will mourn his passing, and remember his fighting spirit and generous heart.
Until we meet again, hermano. You will always be in the soul of our family.
