THE PILOT JIM REED
PHOTOS: DARIN MCQUOID
“IF CLASS V KAYAKING means you have to be focused and aware and mistakes mean injury or death, then every instant in the air in a helicopter is class VI. Jim Reed is quiet, humble and spectacularly skilled, with a deep understanding of these whirling masses of parts. He makes gravity disappear.” These are lofty impressions, especially coming
from Doug Ammons, a whitewater icon and ad- venture sports pioneer. They attest to the level of intimacy between pilot and paddler—espe- cially when venturing into the Grand Canyon of British Columbia’s Stikine River, a larger than life landscape that demands expertise and nerves of steel in the air as much as it’s a proving ground for the world’s best boaters. Reed came to Canada from his native New
Zealand in 1990 and eventually settled in the northern B.C. town of Dease Lake,
flying for
Pacific Western Helicopters. Like most chopper pilots, the majority of his flights transport geolo- gists and supplies to drilling camps and fisheries biologists to mountain wildernesses. In between, he whisks tourists through the 72-kilometer-
“HE MAKES GRAVITY
DISAPPEAR.”
long, 300-meter-deep Stikine Canyon, which was first attempted by kayak in 1981. Reed became the go-to pilot for world-class
paddlers looking for logistical and video sup- port—and sometimes emergency extractions— from the air. His first group arrived in 1998, including Ammons, Rob Lesser, Gerry Moffat, Charlie Munsey, Wink Jones, Reggie Crist and a cameraman. “I’d often tried to picture a kayaker running
the canyon and figured it would be too diffi- cult,” says Reed. “Seeing these guys in their tiny boats I got a better feel for the actual size of the waves. I came to the conclusion that they were bloody nuts.” That first expedition, which was completed
successfully in three days, still ranks amongst Reed’s best memories. Besides sparking a long- time friendship with Ammons, Reed was struck by Lesser’s “tenacity of age”; the Stikine legend was 53 when Reed met him. Ammons describes Reed as exuding a preter-
natural, “Yoda-like” calm behind the controls. Reed’s most hair-raising moments have come on account of the handful of unprepared paddlers he’s lifted out of the canyon—rescues involving precise landings, long lines and miniscule mar- gins of safety. “Jim’s done this for more than 30 years with
quiet aplomb,” says Ammons. “He’s a master of the machine.”
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