Bill Lopaschuk knew he wanted to fly when, at the age of eight, he saw his first planes in Whitehorse in 1935. In August of 1947, the 20-year-old took his first flying lesson in the Okanagan Valley. In the years that followed, he flew for five airlines in more than 60 different planes, including the first deHavilland Beaver, and logged more than 25,000 take-offs and landings. He fought forest fires, flew medivac missions, moved a D7 CAT in the cabin of a single engine Otter, helped map the mineral potential of northern BC, and flew supplies into the remote radar sites on the DEW Line in the Arctic.

And he did it all without the sophisticated navigational and communication technology upon which today's pilots rely. While the stories in They Call Me Lopey are uniquely Bill's, they reflect the life of BC's bush pilots in the days before GPS and Google Earth. His story will appeal to anyone interested in bush pilots, planes, BC's aviation history and the big projects that shaped the province's northern economy.

About the Author

In 1967, Bill moved to the Telkwa in the Bulkley Valley of northwest BC with his wife Toni and there three children. Bill and Toni still reside there, within a few hundred yards of a floatplane base on Tyhee Lake where he worked until his retirement.