By Steve Hubrecht
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Well-known and well-travelled Invermere resident Andy Stuart-Hill has penned a book detailing the exploits of one of his first — and one of his most colourful — trips. Those who know Andy well, and even many of those who know him only casually, are no doubt raising their eyebrows right about now, thinking ‘one of Andy Stuart-Hill’s most colourful escapades? That must be some kind of trip…’

And indeed it was: a multi-month overland journey in a converted bus from Cape Town to Cairo, and beyond, that Andy, who was born in South Africa, made 1955 (when Andy was 22 and when overland travel of this type was hardly thought of). Along the way, Andy was mistaken for a blonde god, and —— along with his bus-mates — battled through the rain-slicked mud roads and thick rainforest of the Congo, encountered lions and other wildlife, became mired in the vast reedy swamps of the Sudd (in what is now South Sudan), followed along the banks of the mighty Nile, and became stuck (again and again and again and again. And again) in the soft, shifting sands of the Nubian desert (while a leaky water tank slowly seeped out the group’s precious water supply). He and friends wandered the winding alleyways and souks of Khartoum and ancient Cairo, were accidentally locked inside a pyramid at Giza, and for good measure, were thrown in a jail cell after being mistaken for spies in Algeria, while the Algerian civil war raged around them. Andy made time in the jail cell more enjoyable by demanding better wine to go with dinner (which, to his companions amazement, he actually got), before the group was deported as refugees to France.

It would have been the trip of a lifetime for most people, but for Andy, it was just the beginning of a lifetime of trips. Andy is well known in Invermere for many things: his two decades of work as secretary treasurer for the local school board, for marrying more than 500 couples during the decade he spent as one of the Columbia Valley’s most popular marriage commissioners, and for his extensive involvement with Panorama Mountain Resort (he’s an avid skier and even wrote The Hill That Became a Mountain, a history of the ski hill, which has been through five editions and sold more than 2,000 copies). But longtime Pioneer readers may perhaps best know Andy for being undoubtedly the most prolific local participant in the Pioneer’s long-running travel photo contest (prior to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, of course, which has put paid to international vacation travel). Andy has visited at least 150 countries (not counting semi-autonomous territories, such as Hong Kong) and has set foot on all seven continents.

A quick skim through the places he’s visited since retiring (never mind the many places he managed to visit before retiring) reads like a list of far-flung locales that many valley residents may very well never have even heard of: Mozambique and Mauritius, Bosnia and Botswana, Islamabad and Ionia, Kuala Lumpur and Kostroma. (Kostroma? What do you mean you didn’t know of that quaint riverside Russian city, famed for its golden-domed monastery, wooden houses and wooden churches, and the surrounding oblast’s experimental moose milk farm?), Lebanon and Latakia, of course, Baalbek and Bcharre, the Red Fort and the River Kwai, Mumbai and Mandalay, as well as Syria, Slovenia and Slovakia (and, yes, Suva, Siwa, Suzhou, San Salvador, Sentosa, Santa Anna and Saladin’s castle too).

If you’re now picturing Andy duly crossing off countries’ names on a big bucket list, you’re missing the point: Andy is not the type of traveler content to take in the main sights of a place, snap a few photos and buy some souvenirs. On the contrary, he goes out of his way to soak in as many experiences as he can, no matter where he finds himself: In China he got up at 5 a.m. to practice tai chi with locals in Shanghai, then woke a good deal earlier to follow a group of pilgrims walking up 6,293 steps to the summit of holy mount Tai Shan, arriving at the top just in time for sunrise. In Bolivia, he was teargassed by police during a local riot over rising propane prices. In Jordan, he camped out with Bedouin in the desert, marvelling at the most star-studded night sky imaginable. In Cyprus, he spent 10 days scrambling across the rocky Troodos Mountains.

What’s his favourite destination? His answer is quick and unequivocal: Antarctica, which Andy visited in December 2013 (a photo of that trip appeared in the Pioneer’s travel photo contest shortly after Andy returned home).

“Antarctica is spectacular,” Andy told the Pioneer, adding the environment there is about as unspoiled by humans as it’s possible to for a place to be on Earth, and the frigid expanses are entrancing. Antarctica, though very cold, is, in fact, a desert, owing to the fact that precipitation rarely falls there. Andy is quick to note, pointing out that he has long been fascinated by deserts of all types.

“With deserts, there’s something about the dust and heat that intrigues me to no end. The peace, the tranquility, the emptiness,” he said. “They really are magic places.”

Andy has chased and found this magic all over the globe, visiting such famous deserts as the Sahara, the Libyan Desert, Egypt’s Western Desert, the Kalahari, the Karoo, the Namib, and the Nubian Desert (all in Africa); Wadi Rum, the Rub’ al-Khali (better known as the Empty Quarter), the Syrian Desert, the Negev, and Petra (all in the Middle East), the Great Victoria Desert and the Simpson Desert (in Australia); the Great Basin, the Chihuahuan, Sonoran, Colorado, Yuma and Mojave Deserts (all in North America); the Atacama and Patagonian Deserts (both in South America), and of course, Antarctica.

What compels Andy to seek out the ends of the Earth?

“I’m not 100 per cent sure. It’s in my nature,” he told the Pioneer. “If everybody goes to the left, I go to the right. I’ve always been that way.”

As a kid growing up in South Africa, Andy was heavily involved in Scouts, hiking, camping and spending plenty of time outdoors. By the time he was 16 or 17 years old, he was spelunking in the Sterkfontein Caves (spelunking is the hobby — or a sport depending on your perspective — that entails climbing in, clambering through and otherwise thoroughly investigating underground caves). Most people would be inclined to call this Andy’s first true travel experience — except Andy himself hesitates to count his underground exploits as ‘travel’ per se, since he was still a teenager, and since he grew up nearby, and by his own estimation he was just mucking about in his backyard. As much as Andy might play it down, there’s no doubt that ‘mucking about’ of that sort is an intrepid, venturesome undertaking. And it’s worth pointing out that the Sterkfontein Caves are not just any old holes in the ground — these limestone caverns, known as the Cradle of Mankind, are a World Heritage site, renowned for containing early hominin fossils, including Australopithecus, early Homo and Paranthropus. The teenage Andy routinely came across the fossils, and eventually began acting as amateur guide for paleo-anthropologists who were studying the remains of these ancient human ancestors. This experience sparked a lifelong love for paleo-anthropology in Andy.

After his great Capetown-to-Cairo trip, Andy spent five and half footloose years working around Europe and North America, before returning home to Krugersdorp, South Africa. There, in 1962, he married Kelly, now his wife of nearly 60 years. The couple emigrated first to London, and then to Canada, arriving in Yellowknife, where Andy, who had experience in Krugersdorp’s gold mine, got work at Giant Yellowknife gold mines, helping preparing and transport poured gold bricks (worth millions of dollars) alone from the mine to the Yellowknife post office. His first summer in Yellowknife also involved working with an exploration crew in the barren high Arctic tundra, where he got to live with a local Inuit family, an experience he much enjoyed.

Andy worked several other natural resource-related jobs across western Canada, before moving to Invermere, with Kelly and their two young kids, in 1967 to take the local school board secretary-treasurer position. And it was here in the Columbia Valley that the man with a passion to see the whole world found the perfect place to call home.

“We just loved it here,” Andy told the Pioneer. “We realized it had all the recreation we could ever want right here, and that it was a great place to bring up our children. In hindsight, it was a very wise decision. It’s been absolutely ideal for us. We fell in love with the nature that defines the Columbia Valley, and we found a truly wonderful community. We fit right in and never looked back.”

In 1970 they bought the lot on 9th Avenue and built the house they still live in to this day. You can’t miss their place: the house at 1746 exudes a warm, well-cared for cheerfulness that completely matches the homeowners, and its spot perched at the top of 9th offers marvellous views in all directions. When Andy and Kelly bought the lot, the Wilder subdivision was brand spanking new, having just been converted from a golf course. Their lot was the former eighth green. They figured they’d have to spend $1,200 to $1,300 to own it. The owner asked $800 and the couple’s eyebrows shot up, surprised at the outstanding bargain. Thinking the couple’s reaction was one of shock at a high price, the owner quickly dropped down to $750. Andy and Kelly wasted no time in signing the deal.

Winters passed in a blur of skiing, skating and other snowy fun. Summers went much the same with swimming, hiking and golfing. Throughout it all Andy volunteered as much as a person can, with the Masons, with the Rotary Club (he was president of the Invermere branch in 1982 and 1983), with the Windermere Valley Scout Group (he was district commissioner), and with countless other organizations. At work, as school board secretary-treasurer Andy was constantly busy, figuring out the logistics of many major school changes in valley, including closing the old Galena Elementary School, closing the old Brisco Elementary School, closing the old Wilmer school; building the Radium Elementary School (which then later closed after Andy retired) and building Martin Morigeau Elementary School. He even was the one who found the location for the new David Thompson Secondary School (he found it by doing what he does best: rambling around in the bush off the beaten trail), although it wasn’t until later that the land was purchased and the new high school built. The couple’s kids — Trevor and Lynneth — eventually grew up, left for postsecondary school and started families of their own (Andy and Kelly now have four grandkids: Taren, Cailyn, Cianna and Ryan.

For decades Andy was offered lucrative offers to work as secretary-treasurer at other school boards elsewhere in B.C., but kept turning them down because he and Kelly couldn’t imagine tearing their family away from Invermere. Finally, in 1987 he took a job in Creston, working there for nearly six years until retiring and then promptly moved right back to the valley.

As you might expect, retirement for Andy has been anything but idle. Aside from the extensive travelling, he still volunteers (he was chair of the Invermere District hospital board in 1997, and chair of the East Kootenay Regional hospital board in 1998 and 1999), and he’s still very active physically. He participated in B.C. Seniors’ Games as a swimmer 10 times between 1989 and 2000, winning 43 medals, 20 of which were gold, and at age 88, he’s still skiing Panorama each winter (this season was his 54th at the hill). That still left him leftover time in which to perform 500-plus wedding ceremonies as a marriage commissioner between 2004 and 2014, and to pen both The Hill That Became a Mountain and his Cape to Cairo account.

Pioneer readers intrigued to learn more details about Andy’s Cape to Cairo journey will be delighted to know that the Pioneer will be running the story in its entirety, in semi-regular serialized instalments. Stay tuned to future issues for the first one.