Walt was raised in Coquitlam but attended elementary school in New Westminster, graduating from Duke of Connaught High where he excelled as an all-round athlete: sprinter, baseball and soccer player, golfer, and helped win a BC boys high school basketball championship in 1947 as a member of the storied ‘Dukes’. Walt was not keen on working in his father’s shoe store on Columbia Street as a young teenager, but loved to recount tales from his summer jobs ‘swamping’ on a Lucky Lager beer truck and working on a survey crew preparing the route for the new highway from 93 to 100 Mile House in the Cariboo. At UBC he was the first house manager of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and earned both his BA in political science and his LLB. Walt articled with Colin McQuarrie’s firm in New Westminster, was called to the bar in 1956, and stayed with McQuarrie for 5 years before striking out on his own, eventually forming partnerships with first Bob Marshall, followed by ‘Punch’ Thompson, Rhys Hugh, and Brian Omichinski. Walt married his Duke of Connaught classmate, sweetheart, and fellow UBC graduate Shirley Anne Bowell in 1955, and the couple formed a remarkable and loving partnership that time cannot dissolve, try as it will. Walt enjoyed the collegiality of the BC Bar Association’s annual get-togethers and was an active member of the Gyro and Westminster Clubs and Probus. He was a member of the Vancouver Golf Club since 1945 and served as President in 1972. He loved to play golf and golf, so cruel to most, loved him back. He was in his prime a 2 or 3 handicapper with a swing all his own that produced a predictable draw and a ball in the middle of the fairway or green. He was a phenomenal putter who truly believed he couldn’t miss from anywhere and so seldom did. His partner in putting proficiency was a weathered old Spalding ‘Calamity Jane’ model of the type used by the great Bobby Jones but unseen outside of museums since the late 1940s. On a golf tour of the U.K. in 1977 he played Royal Dornoch sight unseen and shot 74. He ran for federal office in the 1965 general election and served for many years on the New Westminster Board of Variance. Walt was a seasoned and skilled fisherman who enjoyed many trips with his friends Ritchie, Bill, Dick, and Sonny Nelson to fish steelhead on the Tlell River in Haida Gwaii. Retiring from law in 1995, Walt read widely, voraciously, and enthusiastically in biography, politics, fiction, and history, particularly the history of the Second World War. One of the great joys of his life was attending the games that his children and grandchildren played: soccer, basketball, football, field hockey, and baseball. His dedication is exemplified by his traveling in 2008 to Williamsport, Pennsylvania to watch grandson Max Waterman play in the Little League World Series with Canadian champions White Rock. Walt was a wonderful host to Shirley’s hostess and spared no expense when entertaining family and friends. He enjoyed a cold beer (always drunk from a glass, never direct from the bottle) on a warm day and a warming Scotch on a cold day. In later years he loved to mark the seasons, often walking along the Nicomekl River with his beloved Maltese-Bichon cross ‘Beau’ to watch the salmon heading up river to their spawning grounds or spending an afternoon at the Reifel Bird Sanctuary to catch sight of the flocks of migrating Snow Geese. But he got just as big a thrill out of timing the arrival of his favourite seasonal vegetables at local produce markets. Walt loved to laugh and did so with gusto; he loved hearing stories, witty quips, and jokes; he loved people, their quirks and foibles, and could laugh at himself. At six foot tall and 200 plus pounds, he was a strong man but a soft touch; a man of few words but whose words were as carefully considered and placed as one of his golf shots; an honest, unpretentious, staunch, considerate, faithful, fun-loving, and unstintingly generous man. He was a ‘man’s man’ but Shirley and his family came first; a less materialistic person it would be difficult to find, his possessions were few; Walt had no interest in things, in acquiring and keeping stuff, nor any interest in sentimentality and nostalgia; he was attached only to the people he loved and to the experiences he could share with those people. He never imposed his views on his children, but encouraged them to think independently, to “figure it out for yourself” as he said. He lived in the here and now and here and now he will be missed greatly.