I have known J. J. Hilsinger from Sault Ste.
Marie for at least a quarter century. I can’t remember when I met
him or how I met him. It just seems like I’ve never not known him.
I see Jim maybe two or three times a year and almost always at the
Northern Ontario Business Awards, which Jim has supported since
inception.
MICHAEL ATKINS |
How you really get to know a man, however, is by
spending a week skiing, boating, hunting or fishing with him.
Some 15 years ago, Jim joined a group of us who
go skiing in a far away place in America where the sign at the top
of the hill says 13,500 feet.
At the time Jim was not only a consummate
downhill skier, he had his own ski resort. For my part I was a ski
idiot who took up skiing at the age of 40 for reasons that are
still not entirely clear to me.
Jim’s annual attendance on our ski trip was
determined more by the amount of snow he had at Searchmont Ski
Resort in Sault Ste. Marie than how much snow was in America
because we ski the first week of December every year.
Some years Jim would come because he had lots of
snow and things were under control, and some years he would come
because he had no snow and it was pointless to stay and stare at
the sky.
Some years he wouldn’t come because he had snow
and was too busy, or he had no snow and had to keep a watchful eye
on things.
Anyway, way back then marked the beginning of our
annual ski club called the Whoosie Ski Club or Whoosie club du
ski.
Jim was president of this club for many years.
The role has no responsibilities, no accountabilities and, if you
try bringing any order whatsoever to the club, you are immediately
fired.
Michael Atkins describes his good friend J. J.
Hilsinger as opinionated, irascible, pig-headed, creative,
brilliant, passionate, annoying and adventuresome. |
Jim made the mistake of once writing a longish
memo on the nature and practice of Whoosiedom. We fired him and
replaced him with a friend who has not skied with us for seven or
eight years.
We refer to him as our president in absentia,
which is how we like it.
Although Jim’s day job for many years has been to
own and operate Algoma’s Water Tower Inn in Sault Ste. Marie, his
passion has been the land, his town and Northern Ontario.
Jim is an extraordinary individual, which by no
means makes him easy to get along with.
He is opinionated, irascible, pig-headed, hard
working, creative, brilliant, passionate, annoying, adventuresome,
introverted in a loud sort of way and sometimes hard to figure
out.
What is not hard to figure out is his essence.
Jim lives life to the fullest. He has high standards for himself
and he is not shy about holding others to those same
standards.
Of late, Jim has become a writer and a darn good
one. He writes about what he sees, what he feels and what he thinks
is right.
Some time in the last six months or so Jim
decided it was time to take a bike ride from Cairo to Cape
Town.
You have to understand that if you know Jim this
makes perfect sense. When I last spoke with him around the end of
November there was no
mention of this project.
The next time I learned of it I got an e-mail
from a Sudbury friend who ran into him in the Sudan.
Do me a favour. Go to a Web site called www.youbetican.com.
If you want to learn about spirit, adventure,
courage, audacity and just plain chutzpah pay a visit.
He will make you proud to be a Northerner. It
makes me proud to know him ... not enough to elect him President of
the Whoosie club, but darn close.
Michael Atkins is the president of Northern
Ontario Business. He can be reached at[email protected]
.