Daniel Arthur Mackie: Pilot. Writer. Inventor. Grandpa. Born Feb. 10, 1937, in Kimberley, B.C.; died March 15, 2024, in North Vancouver, B.C., from diabetes-related kidney failure; aged 87.
Daniel Arthur MackieCourtesy of family
At the age of 102, Dan Mackie was shot by a jealous husband after a lengthy barroom brawl. Okay, not really, but that was the story Dan Mackie always insisted would be told. A consummate storyteller and writer, Dan wrote because he couldn’t not write. The following history is all true.
Growing up in a small town in the mountains of British Columbia in the early 1940s meant fishing, hiking, skiing and summers with his grandparents in Nelson while his father, Art Mackie, worked as an electrician at a mine. Dan spent time at the town cinema watching tales of adventure and newsreels of daring Second World War pilots: he dreamed of one day flying and writing adventure stories. After the war, veteran pilots put on air shows in Cranbrook, B.C., so Danny saved up his pennies for a life-changing ride in a Cornell airplane.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Dan and his father criss-crossed Canada looking for work while his mother, Alice, and elder sister, Shirley, supported the family by waitressing in Montreal. Dan went to school, worked as a carhop at a drive-in restaurant and discovered swimming and diving. Diving allowed him to soar through the air like he was flying.
His parents encouraged Dan to attend university and improve his job prospects by studying engineering. Dan applied to the University of Toronto but was rejected since he didn’t have a Grade 13 French credit. Ironically, he was accepted to McGill University in Montreal for mechanical engineering. At university, he was a champion diver and joined the Phi Kappa Pi fraternity. They hosted frat parties and invited nursing students from the nearby Royal Victoria Hospital. One enchanted evening, student nurse Lori Adams saw Dan across a crowded room and said, “Who is that man? I’ll be marrying him!”
Dan Mackie in 1972, standing beside the biplane he built in his basement.Courtesy of family
Dan graduated in 1961 and took an engineering job in Montreal that sent him to San Francisco for a year of training. Here he learned to play jazz piano and drums and took writing courses at the state college, where his professor encouraged him to submit short stories to magazines.
Upon his return to Canada the next year, he married Lori. Dan found working with large mining construction companies frustrating because of their stubborn resistance to innovation, so he moved across Canada and the United States in pursuit of work that combined his engineering skills with his creative flair. Joining him were Lori and their expanding family: David, Derek, Dean and Debbie (born in three different cities). Going to a new city and a new school every few years wasn’t easy, but the family always had each other as close friends so it never felt like a hardship.
His weekend hobbies also took up a lot of his time. Dan obtained his private pilot’s licence and built a biplane in his basement, then started up a flying school in Saint-Lazare, Que.
He was also writing. Over the years he gathered stacks of rejections, but some came with encouraging feedback, so he kept at it. He wrote short stories, aviation columns and articles, an engineering textbook, several children’s and teen books, plus multiple self-published thrillers and memoirs.
In the 1980s, Dan patented a processing technology for copper and gold that was environmentally friendly and efficient. Unfortunately, he was ahead of his time on sustainability. He ran a successful consulting side business and was later prepared to transfer the business to his son Derek. But disaster struck in 2012, and Derek was killed in a flying crash.
After that, Dan enjoyed travelling with Lori and his lifelong Phi Kapp pals, and spending time with his children and eight grandchildren. He enrolled in Taekwondo in his 80s for the exercise, but also as research for a thriller novel he was working on. There is nothing like a good story.
Dean Mackie is Dan Mackie’s son.
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