May 2, 1957 - December 8, 2024
The Mayor of Moccasin Flats left us suddenly, leaving behind an incredible legacy as a friend to thousands of people his life touched in 67 years of walking this earth. Known for his kindness and friendly personality, Hank was the voice from the tent who attended meetings with politicians, city staff and business people, representing the concerns of the homeless community. Selfless, tireless and firm in his belie fs, he gave them hope against the hardships of their lives, always trying to find creative solutions to try to fix the troubles and turmoil they longed to escape. He was a warrior for injustice who spoke up for the people of the streets painted with the prejudice that comes with poverty and it drove him to form a not-for-profit society – Building a Healthy Community – The Voices Project - in a collective effort to push for positive change. He truly believed everyone’s opinion mattered and deserved to be heard and had plans to produce a regular podcast to air their concerns.
His biological mother, Nellie Talio, gave birth to Hank in Bella Coola. He was adopted a young age by Taletha and Jim Hayden and grew up in a foster home with 14 kids, where he learned the traditional ways of his people in the coastal community as part of the Nuxalk Nation.
He attended Sir Alexander Mackenzie Secondary School in Hagensborg and moved to Prince George when he was 14. Downtown Prince George became his home and he began his unofficial apprenticeship as a curbside counsellor. He went out of his way to protect young people, always looking out for the most vulnerable. Blessed with a soft-spoken knack for gaining people’s trust, he built unlikely relationships as a result.
Everybody loved Hank. He played and coached basketball, and also put his athletic ability to work on the handball/racquetball courts. Through sports activities he encountered at his job working as a carpenter at Camp Trapping he connected with teens who had gone through the justice system.
He put his skills as a tradesman to work operating a portable diamond drill. He gained a reputation among his employers for being able to find the richest veins of gold and other coveted metals and his work took him places beyond northwestern British Columbia, including the Canadian Arctic, Greenland and Siberia.
Hank’s life changed forever early in 1992 when his former wife Beverley Cote gave birth to their daughter Tamara. He got tired of working away from his family in remote locations for weeks at a time and came to the realization his work as a miner was contributing the abuse of Mother Earth, so he retired from his job in the 1980s. He went through formal training as a medic and put those skills to work as an industrial occupational first-aid attendant. Having his own daughter to care for lit a spark in Hank and inspired him to do whatever it took to make the streets safer for young people.
When the homeless camps started appearing in clusters in the downtown core in Prince George, Hank was hired by Salmon Nation Trust to provide compassionate care for the wanderers, travelers and outcasts who congregated in those camps, where he could remain in close contact with his daughter Tamara. The rampant use of opioids among the downtown crowd made Hank all too familiar with using naloxone kits to prevent overdose deaths and he literally saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives as a frontline medic. At his camp at Moccasin Flats he was called upon to stitch up knife wounds and pick out buckshot when victims of violence came to him.
Hank believed in a higher spirit looking down on all of humanity and he’s now at peace having found his place on that plain. He lived by the motto: Peace out, love everybody equally and God bless.
The second-oldest in a family of eight, Hank is survived by his daughter Tamara, stepdaughter Krystal, sisters Bertie, Ruth, Victoria and Rowena, and brothers Peter, Stirling and Art.
The community is invited for food and drinks to help celebrate Hank’s life on Wednesday, May 14 in front of the Prince George Courthouse at the Healing Fire event from 11 a.m.-2 p.m., sponsored by Nezel Be Hunuyeh Family Services.
A gathering of family and friends will follow later that day at Paddlewheel Park.