Howard the Walker – (1946 – 2021)

It is with great sadness that we mourn the loss of our friend, Howard, who passed away on June 27th doing what he loved best, hiking alone in Vancouver’s north shore mountains. His goal that Sunday was to climb up to the Grouse ski area via his private version of the Skyline Trail. Although he always started his hikes early in the morning, it was exceptionally hot that day especially for Vancouver.

Every weekday Howard would call his friend Rick without fail at 1 pm to chat. When Howard didn’t call on Monday and couldn’t be reached Rick was concerned. He knew Howard had planned his hike on the prior day so contacted the police who found Howard’s car in the Grouse parking lot. North Shore Rescue volunteers searched valiantly for over two days until he was found deceased early on 1 July. He had almost made it back to the parking lot.

Howard was born in Portsmouth, England on August 29th, 1946 to George and Muriel Moore who were both teachers. Howard, along with his older sister Sarah, grew up and went to school in Farnham, Surrey and then in Maidstone, Kent as their father got promoted and eventually became a headmaster. At school Howard enjoyed history but at university read physics instead of history as job prospects were better. After university he worked as an apprentice programmer in Stafford, not far from Stoke-on-Trent, home of England's pottery industry. He enjoyed photography, giving family slide shows, and travel including to the continent.

Around 1970 Howard saw an advertisement for jobs in Canada, applied and received a job offer. Although he wanted to be in Vancouver, the Canadian authorities insisted that he start in Toronto where he arrived in 1971. He became a Canadian citizen in November 1976. Eventually he got the wanderlust again and decided that it would be a challenge to ride a bike on his own across the country. After about 6 weeks on the road he arrived in Vancouver, found a job and began to explore the wonderful BC environment. He also discovered the joy and challenge of investing, especially in the local mining stocks, and was quite successful. By 1991 he found working as a COBOL programmer was not nearly as interesting as investing so decided to quit his job and ‘retire’ (at the ripe old age of 45!) to focus on investing and hiking. He had some lean years but Howard was very (extremely) frugal with simple tastes so managed to survive.

Around 2002 he met the Sunday Walkers, a group of near or just retired mostly singles who walked every Sunday for a couple of hours at various locations around the Vancouver area. Howard became a regular and made many friends within the group who shared his interest in history, the stock market, investing, skiing and hiking. About the same time, he also moved into the Alexander Tower apartment and made a number of friends there. This proved to be a convenient location for his daily walk downtown to manage his investments, visit the library and have a coffee or snack in his favourite restaurant including the Whitespot for the special senior rate. Howard loved a deal! He also had an exercise routine at a local gym and could still do 100 push-ups at the age of 74!

Howard never married. He was predeceased by his mother and father and is survived by his sister Sarah, two nieces, four great nieces, one great nephew and a just arrived great-great niece.

Per Howard’s wishes, there will be no service. Some of you might want to show your appreciation to the North Shore Rescue Team by sending a donation to them.