Remembering Gary Kilpatrick
It must have been about 1950. We had moved back to Nelson after a stint in California and were living in the little white house at 1002 Kootenay St. My first friend there was Tom Ramsay who lived in a big house at the end of the street. One afternoon he brought Gary over and the three of us became fast friends. After an initial wrestling match to determine who was the toughest, Gary took me fishing to “his pool”, a lovely spot in Cottonwood Canyon at the top of the falls near his grandparent’s house. The adventure had begun.
It was an idyllic life for Nelson boys in those days. We fished Cottonwood Creek and around the City Boathouses, raided gardens and fruit trees, skied at the old golf course hill and later at Silver King, tobogganed in the gully behind Tom’s house, played hockey at Powell’s Ponds or on the lake, had shinny games on Latimer Street and swam at the boat houses and City Wharf. When the family moved across the lake for the summers, we moved the adventure over there. Tom and Gary would sometimes amaze me by swimming over from the boat houses. Other members of the uphill gang included Fred and Vernon Goldsbury, Dick Gelinas, Clare Palmer, Gary Higgs and my old friend Harry Cox.
Gary was always a ring leader and the first to try new things – the first try ski jumping, the first to dive off high cliffs and the new Nelson Bridge, the first to get kicked out of school, the first to smoke and drink beer, the first to have a girlfriend and the first to go off and play hockey professionally. He left at 15 to play junior B in Lethbridge, played Junior A in Moose Jaw then moved up to minor pro and was drafted by the NHL. Tom, Gary and I played bantam together, Mack Macadam was our coach. Gary was big and strong by then and no one would fight him. He got me to start trouble so he could step in but players soon caught on.
In the late 1950’s we moved back to California but I usually saw Gary in the summers. I especially remember the summer of 1959. Dennis Miller had a small car and we rode around all night looking for parties and drinking beer. We swam and fished during the day. This pattern continued until well into the 1960s. The Queens Hotel was our main haunt and our gang at that time included such luminaries as Buddy Mayer, Luigi Del Pauppo and Jimmy Rogers. It often included hockey player pals of Gary`s like Jack Stanfield and Bob Plager. After a night at the Queens we would often hit beach parties at Red Sands or Taghum Beach or head over to the Purple Lantern for Chinese food. My job was to hold Gary’s teeth if a fight started which sometimes happened because drunks often challenged Gary.
Gary taught at the hockey school run by Metro Prestai where some of the players also worked. One of Gary`s students was the late Brian Spencer who had a career in the NHL. I worked on construction jobs like the Mary Ann apartments and for Clare Palmer moving furniture. In 1966 I began a lifelong career in fisheries biology as a summer student on the Kootenay Lake Project. After that, Gary often called me “ the ichthyologist. “
By 1965, my family had moved back to Nelson. I stayed in school in California until 1969 when I returned to Nelson. Pat McKim and I got married in 1968 and I didn`t see as much of Gary after that. He and his brother Allan along with Kenny Dewar and Blair Olson had purchased the Savoy Hotel and Gary married Pam Ferguson. Pat and I moved to Vancouver Island in 1969 and my visits to Nelson became less and less. Gary’s hockey career wound down in the 70’s and eventually the Savoy was sold and Gary got involved with other enterprises.
I last saw Gary in the spring of 2012. We met briefly at the Nelson Mall and swapped a few tales. He had cancer by then but seemed to be doing well. By early summer 2013, he was gone.
Gary Kilpatrick was a hero of mine and one of the best friends I ever had. It was a shock to lose him because as far as I knew he was indestructible. Here was a person who, as far as I knew, had never had as much as a cold. A person who could stay up and party all night then hike to a mountain lake the next day and never break a sweat. Rest in peace old friend……
Ted Burns
April 2014.
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Gary as a Seattle Totem – 1971.
Frank Hufty, Gary, George Bing and I at Proctor, 1965
Gary at Vimy Park in Kaslo, 1967